


Until It's Time for You to Go

by LadyMyfanwy



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:41:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22197256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyMyfanwy/pseuds/LadyMyfanwy
Summary: Ianto Jones has always feared the day he would pass away... not because he would die but because his beloved immortal would once again be alone.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 15
Kudos: 63





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was prompted by an old song, 'Until It's Time for You to Go', written by Buffy Sainte Marie. It's available on YouTube and it's a lovely way to spend a few minutes.

Until It's Time for You to Go

Chapter One 

Jack adjusted the pillow behind Ianto’s head before lying down next to him and pulling the duvet over them both. “Comfy?” he inquired as he slid his arm under Ianto’s shoulders and drew him in close.

“Oh, yes,” Ianto sighed happily as he snuggled into his husband’s embrace, relishing the heat radiating from his body. This was his favourite time of the day, when the rest of the world ceased to exist and it was just him and Jack in a lovely warm cocoon. He enjoyed the rest of his daily activities, especially painting; in fact, his latest work was sitting on its easel over in the corner, ready to be delivered to the collector who had purchased it sight unseen. 

Ianto Jones was an accomplished artist, working mainly in watercolours but occasionally, he branched out into oils. His paintings hung in some of the finest galleries and museums on the planet and were the featured pieces in quite a few private collections. The very first painting he’d ever completed was a watercolour of the Scottish Highlands, featuring an icy stream rushing down from rugged and imposing mountains whose snow-capped peaks protruded above the clouds. It was one of Jack’s most treasured possessions, hanging in pride of place above the fireplace in their home.

“Tell me a story?” Ianto’s hand came to rest above Jack’s heart, feeling its steady beat through his fingertips.

“Hmmm…” Jack kissed his husband’s head, “what should I confess to this time?”

Ianto laughed lightly. “Knowing you, I’m sure it will be surprisingly scandalous.”

Laughter rumbled in Jack’s chest. “I do aim to please!” He kissed Ianto again and shifted a bit, making sure Ianto was perfectly comfortable. 

“Mmmm…” Ianto sighed with contentment.

“Once upon a time, there was this little blue marble of a planet hanging about in the Milky Way Galaxy, in the Constellation Sagittarius. It was definitely a backwater joint as planets go, in its infancy compared to other older and more developed planets across the Milky Way. It was inhabited by a race of beings known as Terrans or Humans and it had a lot of potential. One day, Humans would take their place throughout the Universe, standing tall among the other great races out there, but at the moment they were just plodding along, blissfully unaware of what was out there.

“On this pokey little planet, in a place called Cardiff in the small but very proud country of Wales on the southern tip of an island called the United Kingdom, there lived a truly remarkable man. He was quite good-looking, with sparkling blue eyes and dark hair that was curly when he came out of the shower, and he had the most delicious, kissable lips and he was so very, very smart. And you know what else?”

Ianto was excited and he wiggled with anticipation. “No, what?”

Jack grinned, loving when Ianto’s wee child-like side made a rare appearance. “I’m warning you, you’re never gonna believe it.”

“I will!” Ianto poked Jack in the side. “I promise!”

Looking first left and then right, Jack drew in a deep breath, and then sighed ever-so-dramatically. “He looked good in a suit. Delicious even.”

“Yeah…” Ianto hummed with delight; he loved hearing all of Jack’s stories no matter what they were about, but the ones that included him or him and Jack always made him the happiest. “I’m delicious!”

“Yes, you are...” Jack wanted to say more but a large lump filled his throat as he blinked back a sudden attack of tears. 

Blessedly unaware of his husband’s emotional turmoil, Ianto brushed his hand across Jack’s chest, stroking him like a cat. “What else happened?”

“Well,” Jack tightened his grip on Ianto and lowered his voice. “Now this is the really important part, okay? I mean, really important.” 

“Is it a secret?” Ianto whispered.

“It was for a while,” Jack confirmed. “Only four other people knew about it, but then the news leaked out – no one knows how – but it did, and pretty soon everybody knew.”

“Knew what?!” Ianto was well aware that Jack was teasing him. “Tell me!” and he tickled his ribs, making Jack laugh and try to squirm away.

“Okay!” Jack managed to grab a hold of those diabolical fingers. “I give!”

Ianto sniffed with smug satisfaction. “I rather thought you would.” 

“This lovely man had the most amazing gift for brewing a concoction called coffee; it was truly something only a God could have created. Lots of other people, hundreds, thousands, even millions of others made the same exact drink every single day, but no one, not a single one of them, could make it as deliciously as this delightful Welshman.”

“Me…” Ianto murmured against Jack’s chest, his breath the lightest tickle on the older man’s chest.

Jack closed his eyes against a fury of tears and kissed his head once, twice, three times. “You, my love,” he threaded his fingers through Ianto’s and brought them to his lips for another kiss. “Only you.”

(*****) 

Time passed, so much of it spent lying together in one another’s arms, telling stories, whispering secrets, sharing memories, and then came the inevitable morning when Jack woke to the sounds of the birds busy eating and bathing on the little patio outside Ianto’s room… 

Ianto didn’t.

It wasn’t until the sun began to set, bathing Ianto’s room in so many beautiful shades of rose, violet and gold that Jack’s tears were finally spent, and he allowed the Centre’s medical staff to take Ianto’s cold stiff body away. Jack knew that it wasn’t really Ianto anymore, everything that had made his beloved Welshman who he was had moved on, leaving just an empty shell behind. 

(*****) 

Services were over and the mourners had dispersed; Prince William and Duchess Kate had been in attendance, representing Queen Elizabeth who had been unable to attend personally. However, she did send a recorded private message for Jack in which she expressed her true admiration for Ianto, her appreciation for everything he had done and her immense sadness at his passing. It was something Jack knew he would treasure forever.

A few days later Ianto’s will was read. No surprises there, everything had been left to Jack, his half-share of the house, the money and most importantly, Ianto’s art collection – all the ones that he’d painted including those on loan to museums and galleries as well as those pieces by other artists that he’d collected over the years.

With a heavy heart, Jack returned to the lovingly restored Victorian home he and Ianto had shared until finally the Welshman had grown too ill to be without twenty-four-hour care. 

Ever since the Modlintrey had visited Earth a little over six months ago, landing their shuttlecraft on the carefully manicured lawns of Buckingham Palace – their spaceship being much too large, it had parked itself on the Moon – and scheduling televised interviews with the press and with world leaders, there was simply no way to put any kind of spin on the increased alien activity on Earth. Their ambassador’s declared intent was to establish peaceful relations with humanity. They hadn’t promised to hand over the answers to the Universe or the secret of eternal life or even the cure for the common cold, and as far as anyone knew, there had been no incidents of aliens stealing human brains, or snacking on house pets, or fornicating with fir trees. 

Having rejected UNIT’s cold, regimented and militaristic approach to off-world beings, Torchwood became the Modlintrey’s go-to resource for everything human an alien race could possibly need, and they were very demanding visitors indeed. They wanted to try every kind of ethnic food prepared on the planet as well as visit every tourist attraction they could find. It was all quite exhausting for the team, even with the huge injection of low-ranking UNIT personnel to help with it all.

Ianto’s health continued to slowly deteriorate although he thoroughly enjoyed meeting and spending time with of the Modlintrey envoy, the matriarch of their clan, even gifting her one of his small watercolours, a seascape which had mesmerised the woman as there were no oceans on her planet.

As luck would have it, Ianto’s illness entered a particularly aggressive stage just as the Wilixx arrived. They were a race from a planet neighbouring the Modlintrey, and having heard the glowing reports of Earth’s hospitality, they wanted to see for themselves.

Already spread thin, Torchwood had to work ridiculous hours of overtime to handle not only the newcomers’ demands to do everything the Modlintrey had done but to mediate the jealousy the Wilixx experienced over not getting to Earth first. 

Unable to find enough time to do it all, in the end it had absolutely broken Jack’s heart to put Ianto into a care home but as Ianto’s illness progressed there was simply nothing else to be done. They had discussed it at length, argued, shouted and wept over it. Jack wanted to put Ianto into stasis until a cure could be found, but that was something Ianto adamantly refused to consider. 

“I refuse to become a popsicle, Jack!” Ianto had been furious, pounding his fist on the kitchen counter. “What if the power fails and I thaw out? Did you think of that? My rotting corpse stinking up the place?”

Jack sighed, an invisible fist tightening its grip on his heart. He’d always known Ianto’s time on Earth was limited simply by being a Torchwood employee, but then came the day when Gwen’s deliberate carelessness made Ianto’s death inevitable. 

(*****) 

After going out with Owen to retrieve yet another a ‘gift from the Rift’ as the medic liked to call them, Toshiko donned protective gloves and removed the sphere from the containment box, setting it carefully on the scanner’s tray. It would take a few hours for the computer to analyse it completely, but she’d know soon enough what it was made of, if there was any information about it in Ianto’s meticulously computerised Archives, and best of all – this was the bit that excited Toshiko the most – maybe the alien language inscribed across the orb’s surface would be translated.

Jack had heard the alarm for the cog door upon Tosh and Owen’s return, but he’d been… occupied… with a certain Welshman, so it was more than thirty minutes later when he emerged from his office and appeared at the top of the landing, standing in typical hero pose as he surveyed his little underground kingdom. Gwen was at her desk staring at the computer screen, undoubtedly shopping for wedding accoutrement, Tosh had her head bent over her keyboard, fingers flying with amazing speed and accuracy, and Owen was just coming up from the autopsy bay, report in hand.

As he crossed the floor, heading for Ianto’s empty desk, the medic glanced up at Jack and grinned. “Barn door’s open, mate.” He dropped the file on top of the in-box. “Unless that’s your subtle way of bragging that you just did the tea-boy… again.”

Jack’s eye had been caught by the sphere lying on Tosh’s desk, so he wasn’t really paying attention to Owen. There was something about it that was so familiar, and it was really annoying him that he couldn’t quite put his finger on why. 

Gwen looked up at Jack, sucking in a deep breath and arching her back so that her bosom was front and centre. “Can I help you with anyth…?” Her generous offer was interrupted when Ianto appeared next to Jack and whispered in his ear.

Jack immediately dropped both hands to his crotch – Owen’s words apparently repeated by Ianto – and tucked his shirttail into his trousers and pulled up the zipper. “Oops!” he laughed. “Do you think anyone else noticed?”

“Maybe one or two others, Cariad,” Ianto smiled at him. “Fancy a coffee?”

“I do!” Owen yelled from the autopsy bay, “with biscuits, yeah?”

Jack drew Ianto in against his body and kissed him soundly before releasing him. “Your public awaits, my magnificent macchiato maestro!”

Blushing furiously, Ianto headed for the kitchen while Jack went over to Tosh’s desk to examine the sphere more closely. Neither man noticed the murderous look on Gwen’s face as she watched the men display their love for one another so openly.

“You know, Tosh…” Jack leaned in close and peered at the sphere. “There’s something about…” He took a pencil from the cup and prodded it, making it roll slightly to the side, revealing a new set of markings. “Aha! I knew I’d seen this before!”

Toshiko perked up. “You have? Do you know what these symbols mean? Whose alien language is it? What does it say? Where have you seen it before? When did you see it!”

“Whoa, my wee Toshi-dragon!” Jack held up his hands with a hearty chuckle. “Slow down!” He looked around for a moment. “Why don’t we meet up in the boardroom in say ten minutes? Coffee will be ready...”

“And biscuits!” came a rafter-shaking bellow from below them. “Chocolate ones!” 

“And we can go over everything you’ve discovered and that I know at the same time.” Jack continued as though Owen hadn’t spoken, then he and Tosh shared a smile and a wink.


	2. Chapter 2

Until It's Time for You to Go

Chapter Two

Knowing she had to calm herself down before going to the boardroom, Gwen down to the main shower room and dug around in her locker til she found a bar of very expensive Teuscher chocolate made in Switzerland that she’d stolen from Ianto’s desk the week before. 

“Bloody stupid idea, feeding the best chocolate in the world to a bloody ugly dinosaur!” she complained to the empty room before shoving a large hunk into her mouth and then moaning obscenely around it.

“Oh, God, this is so good!” She crammed in another chunk before she’d even finished the first. 

As a thank-you for something neither man would admit to publicly, Jack had gifted Ianto with a Chocolate-of-the-Month subscription, each month’s offering coming from the very best chocolatiers in the world. Knowing Myfanwy loved chocolate, the darker and richer the better, Ianto occasionally shared a bit with her, substituting it for her normal Belgian chocolate.

Knowing that Ianto bought the good stuff with his own money and not from the Torchwood budget, and that he kept it in his desk to give Myfanwy as a treat when she came down from her aerie, Gwen had no qualms about stealing bars from him now and again. She was quite sure she didn’t do it often enough that Ianto would notice, or she’d have heard about it by now. Finding the number one best chocolate in the world according to National Geographic magazine of all things, had sent her into a tizzy of mirth.

“Stupid Tea-Boy will never miss this!” Gwen had crowed as she’d hidden the bar down her bra and shuffled the rest of the candy around to hide her theft. Ever since that day she’d made it a point to sneak into Ianto’s desk at least twice a month, sometimes more often, blissfully ignorant of the myriad CCTV cameras recording all activity in the Hub.

Having finished gorging herself on stolen sweets and feeling better about having seen Jack and Ianto’s blatant display of affection earlier, Gwen tucked the last piece of chocolate on the top shelf of her locker behind her toiletries kit, cleaned up and headed for the boardroom. “At least the coffee will be good,” she admitted grudgingly as she climbed the stairs.

“Nice of you to join us, Gwen,” Jack greeted her dryly. “My abject apologies if this meeting is interfering with your wedding planning, snacking and whatnot.”

Gwen Cooper-soon-to-be-Williams flushed an ugly shade of red and quickly dropped into the chair on Jack’s left side, sitting across from Ianto, who was seated at Jack’s right hand. She’d tried sitting there once, just after she’d first joined the team, but Owen had immediately set her straight.

“That’s where the tea-boy sits, PC Cooper, and don’t you forget it.” His tone had been stern and there was no warmth whatsoever in his eyes.

Now she sat watching Jack and Ianto holding hands, with Jack leaning over to speak to Ianto in a low tone; whatever he said was met with a brilliant smile from Ianto. Feeling her illicit chocolate high fading quickly, Gwen cleared her throat loudly.

Jack reluctantly released Ianto’s hand and stood up, pointing to the sphere which lay in the middle of the table. “Tosh and I have identified this as a Beatitude Party Ball from the Vegas Galaxies.”

With a flurry of keystrokes, Tosh activated the main view screen for the office, and a film appeared. The team watched as an animated view of the notorious galaxy faded away to a casino, and then the camera floated through the gaming floor and up the escalator to arrive inside a madhouse of a party room. The view shifted upward to show a glowing golden ball that looked just like the orb now sitting on the boardroom table.

Music was playing, the bass thumping, and aliens of all shapes and sizes were gyrating to the beat, when dozens of lights scattered around the room suddenly began putting on a programmed display shooting out beams of every colour and then without warning, it all came to an abrupt halt. The room’s occupants rushed to gather in the middle of the dance floor, looking up expectantly. 

Even the Torchwood team held their breath, waiting for to see what would happen next…

And then they all jerked back in their seats as the golden orb suddenly exploded into the camera lens, showering everyone and everything with an iridescent powder that sent the crowd into a frenzy of motion that could only loosely be called dancing and more often looked like coupling.

The film ended and the team let out a collective sigh of relief. 

“Well, that was intense,” Owen snarked as he grabbed his coffee cup and took a deep sip. “So, this ball could explode and send us all into a dancing sex frenzy?” 

Jack nodded. “That was its primary purpose, but an entrepreneurial arsehat by the name of John Hart took one to Little Haassenn where technology absolutely rules – you might like to visit there, Tosh – and had the sphere reverse-engineered to the point you could put in anything you wanted, money, candy, drugs, gems, disease… you name it and somebody out there stuck it in there. Needless to say, the balls now been banned just about everywhere in the civilised worlds; they’ve gone from being a great party favour to be a thing of war.” He shrugged, “the name stuck though.”

Tosh frowned. She’d found the orb to be quite beautiful and Mainframe was still translating the alien inscriptions. “Drat,” she murmured softly. “So how do we tell what’s in there? Is it in the inscriptions?”

“There’s no way I’ve ever heard of to tell,” Jack sighed deeply. “Ianto, I’ll need a Level Four containment box and a coded locker in the Secure Archives. No one is to ever touch it but me, okay?”

“So, the Rift gives us a bloody poison piñata, is that it?” Owen demanded an answer. “Bloody shithole thinks we’re the galactic tip, dumping all its crap on our heads!” There was actual outrage in his voice, as though the Rift had deliberately selected Cardiff and therefore, Doctor Owen Harper to shit upon.

“Jack, Mainframe needs seventeen minutes to finish her scans; hopefully after that we’ll have a translation that Ianto can file with the reports and photographs in case one of these ever comes through again.” She looked at him imploringly. “If it sits on my desk and no one comes anywhere near it, it should be safe, yeah?”

Torn between the thirst for knowledge and the fact that he had no idea if the sphere was safe or not, Jack chose to ignore the little voice in the back of his head that was shouting, “put the damn thing away and forget you ever saw it!” 

“Fine, but not a moment longer. The instant the scan is complete it gets put away.” He tried to glower at Toshiko, but she was far too happy to notice. “And it stays inside a stasis field the entire time. Understand?”

Toshiko nodded. “I give you my word, Jack.”

“And by the way, Tosh,” Jack beamed at her. “Very well done with the animation! Great interpretation of the story I told you.”

“After hearing you tell it from your first person perspective it was quite easy to imagine.” Tosh blushed slightly, “but thank you.”

Ianto had already pulled on the safety gloves and was transferring the orb to its containment box so he could return it to Tosh’s desk. “I’ll be there the moment the scan is done, Sir.”

“Thank you, Ianto. What would I do without you?” Jack beamed.

“I believe you would manage,” Ianto winked as he brushed past the older man, “one way or another.”

Both he and Jack were too focused on the moment and they missed Gwen giving a gagging impression; Tosh caught it however and frowned.

After returning the sphere to the scanner’s tray and activating the protective field, Ianto pulled out his stopwatch and clicked the button on top. Leaning in close to Tosh he whispered, “I’ll give you an extra minute, just in case.”

Toshiko’s eyes shone. “Thank you, Ianto.”

(*****)

“Two-minute warning, Tosh,” Ianto called out, aware that Jack had just emerged from his office and was heading down the stairs.

Gwen perked up at the sight of Jack; she’d been scrolling through screen after screen of shopping websites, looking for dress options she could suggest – very carefully, mind – to her future mother-in-law. She’d seen the dress Brenda had already selected and it was truly ghastly, a lurid shade of lime-green with trim that reminded Gwen of a feathery snakeskin boa. 

Choosing her moment carefully, Gwen stood up from her chair and picked up the only report she’d managed to complete all day, a one-pager at that. Then, just as Jack was approaching Toshiko’s desk, Gwen made her move, rushing across the Hub’s floor to his side. Her momentum caused her to crash rather inelegantly into the man who in turn hit the edge of Toshiko’s desk and slip a bit sideways.

It was a classic cascade effect worthy of a Benny Hill skit: 

Ianto turned off the stasis field and picked up the orb…

Gwen ran straight into Jack…

Jack stumbled back a step or two from the impact…

Colliding with Ianto…

The weight of two adults pushing against him made Ianto start to lose his balance…

Gwen’s hand snaked out behind Jack and pushed Ianto’s elbow…

The sphere began to slip from his gloved hands…

Ianto managed to wrap his suit jacket around the orb, pulling it tightly against his chest as he toppled over, dropping face first to the floor and curling up in the foetal position like a soldier throwing himself on a live grenade…

It had all happened in a matter of seconds and then…

The sphere burst open… 

Its contents were contained – Mainframe’s analysis later said ninety-eight-point-seven-three-five percent – by Ianto’s jacket, the safety gloves…

And Ianto’s body.

“Ianto!” Tosh screamed as she leapt from her chair. “Jack, help him!” She started around the corner of her desk but was stopped by Ianto’s voice.

“No! Stop! Don’t come anywhere near me!” he ordered. “Owen! I need you!”

“Yeah? What for?” Owen’s head popped up from the autopsy bay and with the intuition of a true Torchwood agent he sussed out the problem immediately. “Don’t move!” He disappeared for a moment, slapping the big red button on the wall, and the sudden ear-splitting claxon and the red flashing lights gave the team only a second of warning before Mainframe’s voice announced that the Hub was going into lockdown due to a biological threat. 

Owen ran toward Ianto, a gas mask over his face and an emergency blanket in his hands. “Get away from him! Now!” His words were muffled but the three people quickly did as he said. “Get a mask on or cover your face!” He flung the blanket over Ianto’s prone body and it immediately moulded itself to the man, seeping underneath him to surround his body completely, forming a crystal-clear barrier between whatever had been inside the orb and the rest of the Hub.

Toshiko flung her arm over her face and dashed into the nearby bathroom, where she wet a towel and put it over her nose and mouth before returning to Jack’s side and handing him the same. 

Gwen just ran from the area, heading for the lower levels while screaming like a banshee about “…stupid bloody clumsy tea-boys!” She didn’t return.

“What can I do, Owen?” Tosh raised her voice as she held her makeshift mask in one hand while briefly touching Owen’s shoulder with the other. 

The medic turned to her gratefully. “Turn off that bloody alarm, first of all!” he shouted above the din.

A few keystrokes later blessed silence descended on the Hub and Tosh returned to Owen’s side. “Now, how can I help?”

“I know Mainframe is already analysing whatever was in that damn ball, but can you speed her along? I need to know what we’re dealing with ASAP.”

“Never mind that, how can Ianto breathe under that thing?” Jack was pacing, three steps up and three back. “Owen, you’re suffocating him!”

“No, it’s…”

“That thing’s gonna kill him, Owen! Do something!” Jack roared in an uncharacteristic show of panic, fear and anger.

Knowing how frantic Jack was feeling, Owen quickly counted to ten before replying. “Jack, stop moving, just stand still and listen.” He waited until Jack complied before continuing – it took nearly a minute for the man to get his emotions under some semblance of control. 

“This is a stasis blanket; Ianto found it down in the Archives a few months ago and thought it would be handy if I ever had to treat a living alien.”

“It…” Jack looked down at Owen, pain, fear and uncertainty clear in his blue eyes. “What…?”

“The moment the blanket touched Ianto’s body it put him in suspended animation. He doesn’t need to breathe. He’s fine. It’s no different than putting him in one of the stasis drawers down in the Morgue.” Owen remained patient. “Now help me get him downstairs.”

It was fairly easy for the men to lift Ianto and carry him downstairs; his curled up body was as stiff as a board. They carefully laid him on the exam table, where the men saw his face for the first time since the sphere had exploded. 

Jack choked back a sob at the image frozen on his young lover’s face. Ianto’s eyes were wide open, filled with fear, staring out at nothing. His lips were tightly pursed, as though he were holding back a scream. Wanting so much to hold Ianto in his arms, Jack clenched his hands at his sides, desperately trying to control himself.

“Owen, please?” Jack’s whisper was agonised. “Can’t you do something? Please help him…”

“Jack, I’m not going to jeopardise Ianto or any of us by releasing that blanket before I know what it… and Ianto… is holding back.” 

“But…” Jack didn’t know to express the pain he was feeling; it was squeezing his heart like a vice and making it hard to breathe. “Please, don’t let him die, Owen. I need to tell him… he needs to hear me say ‘I love you’ just once more. Please?”

Toshiko appeared at that moment. “Owen, here are the results of Mainframe’s analysis.” She handed the medic a computer print-out, then linked her arm with Jack’s. “Why don’t you come over here and sit down with me, let Owen do his job, okay?” She spoke softly, gently, coaxing her distraught boss out of Owen’s way as though he were a child. “I’ll stay right here with you until Owen’s figures things out, all right?”


	3. Chapter 3

Until It's Time for You to Go

Chapter Three

It took four and a half days before Owen felt it was safe to release Ianto from the stasis blanket.

It took nearly two weeks before Ianto opened his eyes and a further three days before he was coherent enough to speak, although at first his words were voiced silently. That slowly cleared up, but the lethargy, the numbness in his limbs, the difficulty in translating what his brain was thinking into what he wanted to say… those problems hung on, but they did respond to Owen’s dedicated treatment, albeit ever-so-slowly.

Thirty-one days after the sphere exploded, the team gathered again in the boardroom, although this time the coffee was from Starbucks and the biscuits from Tesco’s rather than the little family-run bakery that Ianto used to visit several times a week to provide tasty pastries and whatnot to his teammates.

After sniffing the contents of his paper coffee cup and sliding it away from him, Ianto was the first to speak. “I want to thank you, Owen, for saving my life and for the endless hours of research you put into finding either an antidote or a cure. I know how many nights out you sacrificed on my behalf, and I owe your libido an enormous debt.” His eyes twinkled merrily as he looked at the medic.

“Yeah, well, don’t get used to it; next time I’m letting ya kick it.” Owen ducked his chin and grumbled, but it was plain to see that he was touched by the sincerity of Ianto’s words.

Ianto turned next to Toshiko, sitting next to him; “Toshiko, my fierce wee dragon.” He took her hand in his and squeezed it. 

Tosh managed to keep a look of sadness from her face; Ianto’s grip was so much weaker than before the accident.

“Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the things you did around the Hub in my stead, for all the help and support you gave Owen over the past month, for the time you spent with me, encouraging me, listening to me, shouting at me…” 

Tosh laughed. “Sometimes I needed to get your butt in gear!”

“True, so true,” he admitted. “But most of all, I want to thank you for taking care of Jack for me. I couldn’t have done my therapy if I’d known he was miserable and hurting. Thank you so much.” Ianto’s voice was thick with tears by the time he finished this part.

Seeing his distress, Tosh jumped up from her seat and engulfed him in her arms. “It was my pleasure, Yan, always. You would do the same for me,” she murmured against his temple. 

“Oh, give me a break,” Gwen groused; she dipped her biscuit in her coffee and it broke into pieces and fell into the hot liquid. “Damn it!”

The team turned as one to look at her, eyebrows raised in query.

“What?!” She peered into the cup, wondering if she could fish out any of the bits but then decided that the liquid was too hot and the cookie too soggy. She glanced up to see them staring at her. “Never mind, it’s gone,” she tsked and then waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, go on then.”

Four pairs of eyes were rolled in unison over Gwen’s behaviour as the group resumed their positions. She plastered a fake smile on her face in response.

Jack picked up the conversation. “As a personal thank you from both Ianto and me,” he pulled two envelopes from under the sheaf of paper in front of him and handed one to Ianto who gave it to Tosh and then he slid the second across the highly polished table to land in front of Owen.

In typical Toshiko-the-scientist-fashion, she examined the envelope front and back before carefully lifting the flap while Owen being Owen and possessed with all the self-control of a five-year-old simply ripped his open and pulled out the contents.

“What’s this then?” he asked even as he read it. 

“A ticket, Jack?” Tosh was confused. “Are we going somewhere?”

“Anywhere you want!” Jack laughed.

“What?” Owen seemed to be just a bit stuck at the moment as he stared at the ticket.

Ianto took pity on the poor medic. “As a thank you for taking such wonderful care of me, these are open-ended vouchers with no dates and no destination. They’ll take you anywhere in the world you want to go round-trip, courtesy of Her Majesty, via a private jet; she just asks that you give her twenty-four notice.”

“The Queen…?”

“A private jet?”

Jack chuckled proudly. “Turns out our monarch has quite the soft spot for young Mr Jones here.” Jack’s pride was evident as he reached out and gently stroked the side of Ianto’s face.

“OI!” Gwen’s voice was strident. “Where’s mine, then?” she demanded belligerently, rising to her feet and leaning on the table. “I helped too, ya know. I deserve some kind of reward.”

“Yes, Gwen, you did help…” Tosh’s fingers flew across her keyboard and a video appeared on the main view screen, just like the last time they’d all been in the boardroom together, only this time it wasn’t an animated film that began playing.

The team watched in horror as CCTV coverage of the Hub showed the sequence of events that took place on that fateful day, and when it got to part where Gwen collided with Jack, the film’s speed dropped to slow motion. They were all able to clearly see the way Gwen’s hand pushed between Jack’s torso and his arm, her fingers outstretched so that she could push Ianto’s elbow as he picked up the sphere. 

The film froze at that precise moment, just as she touched Ianto.

“That’s not what happened!” Gwen shouted as four sets of eyes turned their accusing glazes upon her. “That’s been tampered with!” She pointed at Ianto. “You did it! You did it to make me look bad so that Jack won’t want me when your sorry arse is dead!”

Jack cleared his throat. “So you’re tell me that Ianto deliberately fumbled the sphere and then selfishly kept all the poison for himself just to make you look bad.” 

“That insipid little tea-boy would do anything to keep us apart, Jack!” she spat. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

“Gwen, there has never been an us to put together,” Jack’s voice remained calm even though there was thunder in his eyes, “much less keep apart.”

“Yeah, and whose fault is that, huh?” Gwen’s voice rose. “Whose fault is that?! I have tried everything I can think of to show you you’re mine, but this little prick just keeps getting in my way!” Her voice was a shrill shriek.

“Gwen, maybe you should sit down,” Tosh suggested.

“Oh, shut it!” Gwen turned her venom on Toshiko. “You helped him alter that film! You’ve helped him every step of the way, always getting in my way, you goody-two-shoes bitch! You always…”

“Sit down and shut up, Cooper!” Owen roared. “Don’t you dare attack Tosh!”

Gwen turned her murderous glare on the medic. “And you, you bloody stinking pervert! Always sniffing after me, rubbing up against me, propositioning me. Ever wonder why I never said yes after that one time? That one over-in-a-flash time? Huh?” She grinned maliciously and held up her pinkie finger, waving it under his nose.

“Yeah, that’s right, shrimp dick.” She nodded her head smugly. “Why else would you say you shagged every woman you come in contact with if you’re not trying to prove something.”

Owen opened his mouth to speak but Toshiko stood, reaching out to him across the table, her gentle hand on his arm stopped him. 

“Having enjoyed much personal experience with the dick in question let me assure you, Gwen, that Owen has more than enough in that department to keep any woman happy.” There was a sweet smile on the petite Japanese woman’s face even as she revealed such intensely personal information about herself. “Even a slag like you.”

As a group, the men all snorted in unison; Gwen Cooper’s proclivity for sleeping around with anyone she could successfully proposition was legendary throughout Cardiff’s Heddlu, UNIT and Torchwood itself. It didn’t matter that she had a fiancé, she used sex to get her everything from a cup of tea to confidential information.

Gwen’s wrath caused her face to morph into a hideous mask as she reached across the table and slapped Toshiko with all her might, sending the tech genius staggering backwards, one hand on her face while the other the other hand reached for the wall behind her for support.

Owen was the first to move, the men being frozen in place for vital seconds after witnessing the unexpected violence between the women. In one swift movement he grabbed Gwen’s arm and twisted it up between her shoulder blades, slamming her face-down onto the polished surface of the table and pulling his handgun, pressing it against the back of her head, his finger on the trigger.

“Get off me!” Shrieking with rage Gwen struggled to stand up but Owen kept the pressure on.

“Gwen,” Jack spoke softly, trying to diffuse the situation before things got even more out of hand. “Owen is going to put his gun away and let you go, then you are going to sit down so we can discuss this like the adults we are, okay?”

“Wha…?” Owen looked up in surprise. “She just attacked Tosh! It’s her fault Ianto got hurt!”

“I know that,” Jack maintained his even tones, “and we’ll deal with everything once everyone has calmed down.”

“Why don’t I go make everyone a coffee,” Ianto rose from his seat, “and bring the chocolate biscuits out of hiding?”

“But…!” Owen’s finger tightened ever-so-slightly on the trigger.

“Owen, if you shoot Gwen you’re going to make a very big mess which Ianto would feel obliged to personally clean up and that would mean a delay in his making us a pot of fresh coffee and worse, in my getting some chocolate HobNobs.” 

Torn between executing Gwen and not making more work for Ianto, Owen finally moved his finger from the trigger of his weapon and flicked the safety on, sliding the gun into the holster in the small of his back. Releasing Gwen’s arm he shoved her into her chair but remained standing next to her for a moment, ready to react in an instant if she tried to get up.

“Thank you,” Jack was most sincere. 

Gwen was just as sincere when she snarled, “You touch me again, Owen, and I will kill you!”

Owen completely ignored her, hurrying around the table to pull Tosh into his arms and hug her tightly for a moment before releasing her to examine her cheek. It was still bright red from the impact of Gwen’s blow.

“Are you all right,” he asked softly, gently holding her chin, tipping her head so he could better the mark in the light; the outline of a palm print complete with fingers was clearly visible. “Let me get you an ice pack, I think that’s gonna bruise.”

(*****)

“No one raises a hand to a fellow employee in my Torchwood, Gwen. No one!” Jack’s voice echoed through the Hub. He was struggling to keep his temper. He really thought he’d done the right thing, bringing her onto his team after Susie committed suicide, but to find out that the woman he had hired to be the ‘heart of Torchwood’ was in fact a cruel, calculating fiend was crushing. And worse, to discover that she was the reason Ianto had been injured was just beyond the pale.

Even though Owen argued strongly and loudly for Gwen to be Retconned back to nappies and then dumped on the worst Council estate in Wales, cooler heads prevailed and Gwen was given a four-week suspension without pay.

Jack shook his head sadly. “How could you deliberately hurt Ianto like that? Why would you do that? He’s never been anything but friendly and helpful and supportive of you since the day you arrived. I know for a fact that he often stays late to finish your reports so that you can go home to your normal life with Rhys.”

Gwen flushed an ugly shade of red. “He’s admin support, Jack! That’s his job.”

“No, Gwen, he’s far more than that.” Jack took a deep breath, let it out slowly and steepled his fingers atop his desk. “Ianto is the glue that holds this place together. He cleans up after us, he makes sure we have the right equipment we need to do our jobs whenever we need it, he feeds us, he takes care of all the aliens down in the vaults, he makes sure that every report that crosses my desk is perfect before he files them and he has single-handedly turned the Archives from a total tip into a place where everything, every file, every artefact, is available to us at a moment’s notice.”

“There, you see?!” Gwen smacked the desk top triumphantly. “He’s just the admin support doing his job!” She had clearly ignored everything else that Jack had said about Ianto.

Clenching his fists in his lap, Jack looked the Welshwoman in the eye. “I have a lot of thinking to do now, Gwen. I really don’t know if I’ll allow you back after the four weeks is up. I don’t if I can. How can I trust you with Tosh and Owen’s lives when you’re out in the field together?”

“How dare you!” The woman actually had the gall to look shocked. “I would never do anything to hurt Tosh or Owen!”

“No, just Ianto.” Jack stood up and held out his hand. “Weapon and credentials, now, please.” 

“Jack, please!” Gwen pleaded finally realising that Jack might actually be serious. “I’m sorry, truly I am. I honestly thought the ball would be full of glitter and stuff, like you said! I just thought we’d all have a good time.”

“I also said that the ball could be filled with something dangerous, didn’t I? I said it could have been filled with anything from candy to a plague virus. You’re just lucky Ianto was the only one to contract that debilitating disease and the only reason that happened was because his natural instinct was to protect the team no matter what.”

Gwen snorted in derision. “Bloody wanker.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “What did you just say?”

Gulping deeply, Gwen changed tactics, pointing out, “Without the tea-boy you’re already a man down, Jack, so without me here, it’s going to be dangerous to have just you, Tosh and Owen out in the field.” She gave Jack her most beguiling smile, widening her eyes and pushed her shoulders back slightly so that her bosom stuck out. “Admit it, Jack, you need me, all of you.”

“I… we…” He swept his hand toward his office window and the Hub beyond. “There’s not one of us who needs you for anything. Not one single thing.” The tone of his voice was cold, the look in his eyes even colder. “Now, weapon and ID, please.”

Realising that for the time being she wasn’t going to be able to charm him into changing his mind, Gwen shrugged her shoulders. “Fine. They’re downstairs.”

“I’ll follow you.”


	4. Chapter 4

Until It's Time for You to Go

Chapter Four

With a loud huff of annoyance, Gwen shoved her chair back, clomped loudly across the room and flung open the office door and then went down the stairs, stomping as hard as she could on each one. Glaring daggers at Toshiko as she passed the woman’s desk, Gwen threw herself into her chair and yanked open her desk drawer. When she withdrew her handgun and slammed it down on top of the desk, movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention and she looked over to see that Jack had his hand on the butt of his Webley. 

She hadn’t even noticed he was armed.

Feeling a cold chill pass over her – ‘Someone walking across her grave’, her grandmother used to call it – Gwen closed the top drawer and then opened the larger one, slowly removing her handbag and equally slowly putting her hand inside and withdrawing her wallet. Removing her Torchwood-issued credentials, she laid the card next to the gun.

“Satisfied?”

Jack nodded but did not take his hand away from his weapon; hers was still in easy reach. “Toshiko has deactivated your entry codes and blocked all access to Mainframe from any computer you may use.”

“Bet that made you happy,” Gwen sneered at Tosh.

“I’m just doing my job, Gwen,” Toshiko smiled sweetly, using the woman’s own words. “I am Torchwood’s technology expert, after all.”

“Everything okay here?” Owen quietly walked up from the autopsy bay and went to stand behind Toshiko, resting one hand on her shoulder.

Gwen noticed the motion and a cruel smile twisted her lips. “Nice to see you like sloppy seconds, Tosh. Just remember next you’re with him I had him first.”

Jack could see Owen’s face contort with anger and he acted quickly to avoid a scene. “Get your purse and your coat and get out, Gwen. For the next four weeks you are no longer a member of my team.” Jack noticed Tosh give a tiny nod to Gwen’s purse; he stepped over to her and retrieved the weapon and ID then moved back. “On second thought, empty your purse on the desk; I want to see what’s in it.”

“What?!” Gwen shrieked with indignation. “Are you kidding me? You can’t do that! That’s private!”

“Just do it, Cooper, so we can this shit over with.” Owen was at the end of his tether, the sooner she was gone the better they were all going to feel.

Snarling with rage, Gwen grabbed the bag and dumped it out on top of her desk, sending items skittering across its surface. 

Jack passed Gwen’s gun to Owen and then walked over to examine the contents, seeing if there was anything related to Torchwood that she couldn’t take with her. Other than a handful of ballpoint pens he knew came from the supplies closet, he was satisfied. “Thank you, Gwen, that wasn’t so hard now, was it?”

Barely able to contain her anger, Gwen gathered up her belongings… make-up and lipstick, a small mirror, her wallet and some loose change, several bars of chocolate and a notebook…

A thought occurred to Jack. “May I see that, please?” He held out his hand and Gwen slapped the small pad into his palm as hard as she could hoping for a reaction but he just ignored her. He thumbed through the pages; they were full of notes about Torchwood cases, obviously incident notes and scene observations, even a few sketches, that she’d made while they were in the field. “I’ll hang on to this for you.” He handed it to Toshiko who put it in a drawer without looking at it.

“And your phone, please, Gwen,” Tosh said softly. 

“No! Absolutely not!” Gwen’s outraged shriek echoed in the rafters. “It’s mine!”

“It’s not yours, Gwen,” Tosh’s voice was calm. “It’s Torchwood issue, programmed with numbers you’ll have no need to access once you leave.”

Gwen gave in to her anger and drew back her arm, throwing it at the other woman, but her aim was off and Owen easily caught it, setting it carefully on the desk. 

“Nice try,” he smirked.

“Let’s go, Gwen.” Jack waved a hand toward the door.

Her desk cleared and her bag repacked, Gwen snatched her coat from the back of her chair so violently the chair spun sideways and tipped over and pulled her keys from her pocket. When Jack heard the familiar jingle of a key ring he stopped her.

“Front door key, please.” He held out his hand.

A thought popped into Owen’s head. “And the access card to the secure car park, Jack. Don’t want her sneaking in messing with our cars or the SUV.”

Jack nodded his head, waiting patiently while Gwen struggled to get the key to the Tourist Office entrance from the ring; the access card was easy, it was in her pocket.

When she had both in hand she turned and threw them at Jack, who let them bounce off his chest and fall to the floor.

“Thank you, Gwen.” He smiled politely as he gestured for her to walk ahead of him. Her back was ramrod straight as she marched in front of Jack over to the cog door, turning back to the trio as she stepped through it.

“You’ll be sorry,” she snarled over her shoulder, yelling to be heard over the alarms, “you’ll see! You’re all going to pay for this! I’ll make you all sorry!”

Jack lost his patience and grabbed her arm, dragging her to the lift and pushing her inside. The ride up was in stony silence and when the doors opened, he again took hold of her arm non-too-gently as they went to the front door of the Tourist Information Centre. He shoved her outside, saying “Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” before he slammed the door in her face and turned the lock with a sharp click.

Returning to the Hub, he found Ianto sitting in Gwen’s chair while Tosh and Owen were behind Tosh’s desk watching the monitors, the cameras showing the car park and Gwen stomping her way to her vehicle. Tosh gasped when she saw Gwen stop by Ianto’s beloved Audi and dig her car keys along the side, putting deep gouges in the paint from boot to bonnet before getting into her own car and screeching out into the street, leaving a trail of burnt rubber behind her.

When Tosh told Jack what had just happened to Ianto’s car, he went over and hugged his Welshman tightly. “Don’t worry, Yan, it’s a workplace accident and Torchwood will pay for a respray, okay?”

Snuggling into Jack’s embrace, Ianto nodded.

“Now,” Owen spoke. “Ianto, mate, are you up to getting us a round of coffee? We need to talk.”

“No problem,” Ianto’s eyes twinkled as he bowed deeply. “It is my job.”

Toshiko giggled. “Let me know and I’ll come carry the tray for you. Here, the boardroom or Jack’s office?”

Jack and Owen looked at each other and the medic said, “Jack’s office. It’s cosy.”

“Cosy?” Jack’s eyes widened in surprise. “Who are you and what have you done with the real Owen Harper? The man I know doesn’t use words like cosy!”

“That’s Doctor Owen Harper, ta very much.”

Tosh snickered behind her hand, leaning into Owen’s side while Ianto chuckled.

“Give me a few minutes, Tosh, and I’ll call you, okay?” Even though he was reluctant to leave the safety of Jack’s arms, Ianto stood. “I presume you want biscuits?”

“The good ones, the ones with chocolate,” Owen demanded. “Don’t think we haven’t noticed when you give Jack special ones!”

“I earned them, each and every one,” Jack proclaimed smugly. “You wanna know how? Sometimes when Ianto and I are…”

“No!” Owen quickly stuffed his fingers in his ears. “La la la la la la la la…!”

(*****) 

Owen snagged the last biscuit from the tin of Tesco’s Extremely Chocolatey Biscuits and began sucking the rich chocolate off it. He’d been right, while the team was always supplied with variety of quite delicious biscuits, Ianto did have a special assortment just for Jack; it was just one of the little ways he spoiled his boyfriend, one of the small many things he did that showed he loved him.

“Okay, then…” Owen pulled the biscuit from his mouth with a pop and tossed it onto a napkin. He had no intention of actually eating it, he’d just wanted to see the look of disappointment on Jack’s face when he’d taken it. “Given Gwen’s last words, there’s no way we can trust her, not ever again. We need a permanent solution, yeah? We’re all agreed?”

Tosh nodded sadly, whispering, “Yes.”

“Yes.” Ianto agreed in a solemn voice.

“Agreed.” Jack sighed. “She’ll be on her guard for the next few days, expecting us to do something.”

“We should all be on our guard too for a while, just in case. I mean, she does know where we all live,” Owen advised wisely. “She knows where we like to eat, where the dry cleaners are, which shops we like, what pubs we drink in… basically, she knows just about everything about our lives.”

Jack sighed deeply. The idea of his entire team being the target of a vengeful Gwen weighed heavily on his mind; worrying about what she might do next to Ianto was a nightmare, not that he’d ever let Ianto know. “You’re right. Tell you what, for the next few days, unless we have to go out on a call, why don’t we all stay here in the Hub? You know, like camping but indoors! It’ll be fun!”

“Did you just say camping? Oh, no! No, no, no!” Owen snorted with horror, memories of their trip to the Brecon Beacons flashing through his mind. “Never again! Never!”

“Calm down, Owen,” Ianto’s soft voice calmed the excited medic down a bit. “Before the accident I was in the process of cleaning out two rooms downstairs near the Archives, I have finally finished them and now they both have beds and everything, and I think they’re quite comfy. You and Toshiko can each take one, and there’s a small loo down the hall from them, near the staircase. For showers you’ll have to come upstairs to use the locker room. We also have plenty of food, water and most importantly, enough coffee beans to last us a month.”

“Nicely done, Yan,” Jack beamed at his Welshman.

“I also have changes of clothes for the two of you…” 

Owen and Toshiko both spoke at once.

“Been sneaking into my flat, Tea-Boy?”

“How did you manage that, Ianto?”

Ianto Jones shrugged. “It was easy; I got your sizes from your dry cleaning and laundry and I picked things up while getting supplies for the Hub. I figured sooner or later there would come a day when we needed a change of clean clothes and you didn’t have any to hand.”

“Been watching ‘Doomsday Preppers’ again, have we?” Owen snarked. He was actually quite impressed that Ianto was so well prepared for a disaster but he refused to show it. 

“BP,” Ianto smiled. 

“Huh?” Owen looked at him blankly.

“Be Prepared,” Ianto clarified. “When I was young I was a scout with ScoutsCymru; their motto is Be Prepared which means ‘you are always in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty’.” He quoted the founder of the Scouts, Robert Baden-Powell.

“Get a badge for coffee-making, did ya?” the medic snarked.

Toshiko was suitably impressed even if Owen wasn’t. “No wonder you seem prepared for anything we encounter, Ianto.”

“Thank you, Tosh,” Ianto bowed slightly in her direction. “No, Owen, as a matter of fact, I learned my coffee skills later in life.” He stood and gathered their dirty mugs onto his silver tray, set the tray on the side table and sat back down. “Now, before I show you the rooms, what are we going to do about Gwen in the long run?” 

Jack spoke up. “She obviously has to be Retconned, Rhys too for that matter. How do we accomplish this?”

“Why don’t we wait until she and Rhys are out of the house Friday night…” Ianto began.

“Why Friday night?”

Ianto looked at Owen. “Friday night she and Rhys are going to his grandmother’s house for her birthday. Gwen once said that she wants to stay in the old woman’s good graces cos Rhys is her only grandchild and she wants to make sure he stays in her will. Apparently she’s quite wealthy and Gwen expects him to ‘cop the lot’, as she put it.” 

Gwen had heard the term on TV a while back and now used it every chance she got, much to the team’s immense annoyance.

“Ahhh…” Owen looked into the empty tin as though more biscuits might have magically materialised and then looked decidedly disappointed.

“Anyway, while they’re gone we’ll go in and put Retcon in their coffee…” Ianto turned to Owen again. “Can you reduce the tablets to a fine enough powder that it won’t be noticeable when it’s mixed in? I don’t want them seeing it when they open the packet.”

“Yeah, shouldn’t be a problem… oh! I know…” Owen had an idea. “Give me some of your whole coffee beans and I’ll grind them with the Retcon, that way the oil from the beans will colour the Retcon and they’ll never notice.”

“I’m not giving you my good beans!” Ianto was positively indignant. “I will however pick up a bag of something inexpensive for you to use.”

“Good enough,” Owen shrugged, “I’ll replace theirs and they won’t know the difference and they certainly won’t remember it.”

“That’ll affect them both, though,” Tosh pointed out and then blinked as she realised what he was doing.

“Even though he deserves to, we just can’t let Rhys remember Torchwood either.” Jack shook his head. “She’s broken through Retcon before, remember? He could trigger her memories.”

“We have four days to get everything in place,” Ianto’s mind was already whirling with a plan. “We need to get them out of Cardiff, away from anything familiar. There’s a lovely town up north, Denbigh, visited it during a road trip in my Uni days; it’s a small market town, big enough for them, we can set Rhys up with his own haulage business…”

“Wait,” Jack held up his hand. “Why does that name ring a bell?” He frowned. “Something happened there… something bad…”

“May I?” When he nodded, Toshiko stepped behind Jack’s desk her fingers flying across the keyboard. Within seconds she’s brought up information on Jack’s monitor. “I think this is what you may be referring to.”

Jack peered at the screen. “This is it!” and he began to read out loud, “Peter Moore is a British serial killer who managed the cinema in Denbigh. He sexually assaulted more than three dozen men over twenty years before he stabbed and mutilated four men to death back in 1995. He was convicted of murder and given a life sentence.”

“No.” Owen shook his head vigorously. “Nope, too violent; hearing about something like that might trigger Gwen’s memory. Find someplace else.”

“Where? There’s going to be violence no matter where she goes.”

“Yeah, but there’s an element of the gruesome to this case that’s just too close to too much stuff she’s seen here.” Owen argued his case. “It’s just too familiar, she’s seen first-hand the damage a rogue Weevil can do to the human body, among so much other stuff, and all it would take is someone up there telling her about these murders in all their gory details for her to remember.”

“All right,” Ianto conceded. “Let me keep looking. However, that doesn’t change the fact that we must stick to the plan. The way I see it, Saturday morning, Rhys and Gwen will drink the Retcon-laced coffee and fall asleep. Tosh, would you please set up a few cameras around their flat so we’ll know when that happens?”

“Certainly.”

“As soon as they’re asleep we go in and get them packed. We plant the story that Rhys had the opportunity to buy a small haulage business… wherever we send them… and that’s why they moved. I can make sure that Gwen’s references from the Heddlu are more than sufficient to get her a job with the local police force.”

“That’s gonna take a lot of convincing storytelling and a lot of time,” Owen observed. “I’ll take along a sedative that induces a twilight sorta state, makes them very suggestable, easy to manipulate. Been working on it in my spare time as an addition to or an alternative to the Retcon. Just in case, ya know?”

“Good idea, Owen,” Jack was suitably impressed.

“Might even be able to get them to help with packing and heavy lifting,” the medic grinned.

“Good thinking, Owen.” Jack pulled the empty biscuit tin over and then looked at Owen, his lower lip sticking out in an epic pout. “Yan, all the chocolate biscuits are gone!”

“I know, Cariad, but don’t fret,” Ianto soothed, putting his hand over Jack’s and rubbing his thumb back and forth. “I have a super-secret stash of something special that’s just for you.”

“Really?” Jack perked right up. “Just me?”

“Really.”

Jack looked at Owen. “Hah!” he gloated. “You heard him, just for me! All mine!”

Owen stuck his tongue out at Jack. “Teacher’s pet!”


	5. Chapter 5

Until It's Time for You to Go

Chapter Five

Ianto was beyond exhausted. It had been a long and trying weekend, with a lot of physical labour; even though he didn’t do any of the heavy lifting, he had done as much to help out as his body would allow. Owen had decided that in order to reinforce the story Gwen and Rhys were told about their new life, Ianto should do all the talking in as thick a Welsh accent as he could manage and with as many Welsh words and phrases as he could fit in. 

Because no one from Harwoods had ever met Ianto, he was in charge of getting the lorry, although Jack actually drove it when they moved Gwen and Rhys lock, stock and barrel to Wrexham, the fourth largest urban area in Wales. The team had discussed its merits at length and had decided that it was plenty big enough to be the ‘city’ that Gwen and Rhys were accustomed to living in. As an industrial and marketing hub there would be more than enough commerce to support Rhys’ new haulage business, and Jack had called in a few favours – he wouldn’t say from whom, no matter how much Ianto pestered him – and Gwen would be a new-hire with the North Wales Police.

It was roughly a three-hour drive north to Wrexham, and it tickled Ianto to no end that Jack couldn’t speed, not when he was driving the big lorry as part of a small convoy that included Owen driving Rhys’ car, Tosh driving Gwen’s car and Ianto with the Torchwood SUV so the team had a way home. Even though it went against all health and safety laws, Gwen and Rhys were sound asleep laid out atop their mattress in the back of the lorry where they couldn’t see where they were going should they wake up; Owen thought it a good precaution to take. For the return trip, Jack and Ianto were in the lorry with Owen and Tosh in the SUV. Tired and hungry, they’d stopped on the way back to eat and mentally regroup before facing a Hub that would never see Gwen Cooper in it again.

After dropping the lorry back at Harwood’s yard, the team split up once they got back to the Hub with Tosh and Owen going to a bar for a drink or three and Jack and Ianto going home. He ran a hot bath for Ianto to soak his aching body in while he made a pot of tea, knowing the hot sweet beverage would relax him even more plus help with the shock of it all. Within an hour of walking through their front door, Ianto was in bed sound asleep. 

The mental and physical strain of dealing with Gwen took its toll on Ianto at a time when Jack began having to spend more and more time away from home. The Modlintrey had arrived and Ianto thoroughly enjoyed working with them and learning about their culture and those on the planets around them. However, the hours he was able to work dropped from the normal twelve hours minimum to ten and then eight, and by the time the Wilixx landed, Ianto’s work day was generally four hours long. He arrived in the morning with Jack, made coffee for everyone, collected and filed the previous days’ reports, ordered lunch for the team and brewed another round of coffee while he waited for the food to be delivered and then after eating, Jack would drive him home before returning to the Hub or wherever he was needed that day to deal with their alien visitors.

After contracting a severe chest and lung infection, Ianto was simply too weak to return to the Hub and so he stayed home each day, kissing Jack good-bye at the door and then waiting patiently for him to return and share his adventures as they ate whatever takeaway Jack brought home or delivery meal that Ianto ordered in. Sometimes there was enough down time for Jack to cook, something Ianto had long ago discovered he was a quite good at. Gone were the days when Ianto could prepare dinner for the two of them.

(*****) 

A ‘misunderstanding’ between a Wilixx visiting Stonehenge and the local constabulary forced Jack to be away from home for nearly thirty-two hours and when he returned to their house he found Ianto naked and unconscious on the bathroom floor suffering from a large scalp laceration with his head lying in a pool of dried blood. Absolutely frantic with fear, Jack had called Owen, screaming “…I think Ianto might be dead…!” and “…you need to get the house yesterday…!” 

On the short drive from Tosh and Owen’s high-rise flat by the Bay, and Jack and Ianto’s quaint Victorian in an old neighbourhood nearby, Toshiko stayed on the phone with Jack, talking him through checking Ianto’s pulse and breathing, trying to keep the older man calm. For some reason, seeing his husband lying on the floor, clearly injured, had caused Jack to forget all the first aid skills he possessed. He didn’t even have the presence of mind to drape a towel over Ianto’s nakedness. All he could see was his worst nightmare coming true, his beloved Welshman was finally gone and he had died alone.

Arriving in record time, Tosh took Jack out into the hallway so that Owen had room to work. It didn’t take long for the medic to revive Ianto, although he kept him on the floor with a towel under his head for a bit longer while he cleansed and bandaged the head wound. It was obvious from the splotch of blood that he’d hit his head on the toilet, the rock-hard porcelain causing the injury. 

“Okay, what’s your name?” Owen asked as he put his gear back in his bag.

“What?” Ianto frowned at him.

“Name, Jones… damn!” Owen growling masked his worry. “I have to check you for signs of concussion and the usual questions are things like your name, where were you born, what’s your birthday, who’s the Prime Minister, stuff you’re supposed to know off the top of your head without having to think about it.”

“Fine!” Ianto rolled his eyes. “Ianto Gethin Jones, St David’s Hospital, Cardiff, 19 August 1983, Boris Johnson… anything else you’d like to know?”

The medic ignored his patient’s snarky tone. “Okay, no hesitation, no slurring, but a bit of attitude.” He flashed his penlight back and forth across Ianto’s eyes, checking his pupil reactions. “What happened, do you remember?”

“After Jack left this morning, I went back to bed and took a nap. When I got up about noon I decided to take a shower.” Ianto shrugged sheepishly. “I slipped getting out of the shower and couldn’t catch myself in time before I guess I hit the sink…”

“It was the toilet, mate,” Owen butted in. “And that was yesterday, it’s Wednesday afternoon.”

Ianto paled. “I’ve been laying on the floor for that long?”

“Yup… Now, are you nauseous? Do you feel like you’re gonna throw up?”

A mischievous twinkle entered Ianto’s eyes as he began to wretch, his dry-heaves sending Owen scooting backwards on his butt in horror.

“Ahhhhh!” He shrieked as he tried to kick the wastepaper bin towards Ianto but his leg was just a few inches too short to reach. “Don’t even think about it! You barf on me, Tea-Boy and I will put laxatives in your coffee! You hear me?”

“Oh for pity’s sake, Owen! You can shove your hands inside an alien’s gut but the idea of a little vomit is too much?” Ianto shook his head. “Your bedside manner really does inspire confidence in your patients, doesn’t it?”

Realising that he’d just been had, Owen returned to Ianto’s side. “My patients are all dead, thank you very much and don’t give a furry rat’s arse about my manners.” He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to find Toshiko with a wet cloth in her hand. “Ta, very much.” With surprising tenderness, he cleaned the dried blood from the side of Ianto’s face and gave the cloth back to Tosh.

“Thank you, Tosh,” Ianto smiled warmly at his best friend.

“Now, how’s your vision, any blurriness, seeing any stars?” 

“No, I’m good, Owen.” Ianto grinned. “I only see two of you, both equally scary.”

“Hardee-har-har,” Owen snarked. “Got a headache?”

Ianto considered for a moment and then answered, “My head hurts from where it hit the ummm…”

“The toilet, the porcelain god, the crapper, the loo, the…”

“I get the picture, Owen,” Ianto interrupted him. “Thank you very much. Now as I was saying, yes, my head hurts from where I hit the toilet but no, it’s not a headache like a headache.” 

“Okay, good,” Owen looked up at the small medicine chest hanging on the bathroom wall. “Got any Paracetamol in there?”

“Yes, but won’t that thin my blood, make my head bleed if the wound opens?” Ianto frowned. “Or am I thinking of aspirin?”

“Yeah, that’s aspirin,” Owen nodded. “You’ll be fine with the Paracetamol if you wanna take it.”

Ianto was loath to take pills of any kind; a children’s vitamin had gotten stuck in his throat when he was five and he’d nearly choked to death. “No, not right now, maybe later though, if it really starts bothering me.”

“Well, it looks like you’re gonna be okay, but I’m serious as a Weevil attack right now,” Owen looked directly into Ianto’s eyes, holding his gaze. “If you start feeling wrong, if you start slurring your words or getting dizzy, or god forbid if you start vomiting on pretty boy out there you call for an ambulance before you call me. I’ll meet you in A&E.”

With a gulp, Ianto realised that Owen was being deadly serious. “I give you my word.”

“Good.”

“Owen, please, I’m cold and stiff, and all I have is a towel to hide behind,” Ianto begged, “May I please get off the floor?”

“Yeah, okay, mate,” Owen looked around. “Do you have a robe or something in here?”

“Behind the door,” Ianto gestured. As Owen helped him get his arms through the sleeves and the sash tied around his waist, Ianto thanked him. “Don’t want Tosh getting jealous, now do we?” he joked feebly.

Owen snorted as he kept his hand on Ianto’s shoulder, preventing him from standing. “Just sit there and let Jack help you, okay?”

Hearing his name Jack rushed into the bathroom, pushing the medic out of his way and nearly into the shower in his need to get to his husband’s side. “Oh, God, Yan!” He dropped to his knees and enveloped Ianto in his arms. “Yan…” He burst into loud wet sobs, crying into his neck. “I was so scared! I thought I’d lost you!”

“It’s all right, Cariad.” Ianto hugged Jack as strongly as he could. “It’s all right.”

“Uhhh, Jack?” Owen poked his boss in the shoulder. “Let’s get him off the floor and into bed and then you can cry like a baby, yeah?”

Jack released Ianto, sniffling into his sleeve.

“Ahem…” Ianto cleared his throat, nodding toward the toilet roll a foot away from Jack’s head. 

Following his line of sight, Jack gave a small half smile and pulled off a long strip and loudly blew his nose before tossing the wad of tissue into the bin. Then, taking great care to not hurt him, he picked Ianto up in his arms, carrying him bridal-style into their bedroom and settling him on the bed, where Tosh pulled the duvet over him.

Jack sat beside Ianto and gently stroked the side of his face. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Aside from a complete loss of dignity, Cariad, I’m fine. My head’s just a little sore but it’s nothing a kiss can’t cure?”

A bright grin lit up Jack’s face and he leaned in to carefully kiss his husband. “Better?”

“Well, it helped but I definitely need more.”

Out in the hall, Tosh nudged Owen in the ribs. “Come on, Kareshi, I’ll make some tea if you’ll clean the blood in the bathroom for Ianto?”

Owen wrapped his arms around Toshiko and kissed her. He loved when she called him boyfriend; she was slowly teaching him various words and phrases in Japanese. “Only for you, my fierce wee dragon.” Before they walked away the medic stepped back towards the two men.

“I know this is a waste of breath, but Jack? You need to stay with Ianto for the next four to six hours, keep an eye on him.” He pointed a finger specifically at Jack. “You keep your hands to yourself, Harkness. Do not molest the tea-boy!”

“But that’s no fun!” Jack flounced and flung himself backwards on the bed. 

“Maybe not, but I’ll know if you do.”

“AAAAAHHHHH!” Jack wailed dramatically even as Ianto rolled his eyes and laughed.

The sound of Tosh giggling could be heard as she and Owen left the two men alone.

(*****) 

That slip-and-fall turned out to be the beginning of the end of Ianto’s independence. He wouldn’t admit it to Jack, but once he’d had time to think about it, it had actually scared him, knowing that he’d been lying naked and unconscious on his bathroom floor – ‘thank God it was clean!’ – for nearly thirty hours. It made him queasy to think that he could have been killed by smacking his head on the toilet of all things. ‘I always thought I’d die from a Weevil attack, although going in my sleep lying next to Jack, in my bed all serene and beautiful, looking like Sleeping Beauty would have been better.’ 

They added safety grab bars in the bathroom inside and outside the shower and next to the toilet. Jack rolled up the throw rugs scattered around the house and bought Ianto special socks and slippers with non-skid soles to wear so that he didn’t slip on the hardwood floors. When Ianto flat-out and quite vehemently refused to wear one of those ‘help-me-I’ve-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up’ buttons around his neck – “Those are for old people, Cariad!” he’d exclaimed in a scandalised voice – Jack even toyed with the idea of implanting Ianto with a sub-cutaneous tracker, asking Owen if there was such a thing that he could slip beneath the skin, something that would be undetectable to Ianto but would let Jack know right away if Ianto were to fall again.

Fortunately for Ianto, Owen said that he didn’t know of anything like that and even if he did, “I wouldn’t stick something in Ianto’s body without his permission, Harkness.” Even though Jack had just been set up for a great comeback, he simply didn’t have it in him to be crass.

Finally, Jack hit upon the perfect plan. Over breakfast one morning he announced, “I am taking you on a day trip to Barry Island, Yan. I’m thinking the sun and the ocean, some fish-n-chips for lunch, maybe a bit of candy floss for afters, it’ll be perfect! Plus it’s been a long time since you left the house for anything other than a check-up from Owen and we are long overdue for our special day.”

As he drank his coffee, Ianto mulled over the idea; he could see Jack trying not to squirm as he waited anxiously for an answer. Before the accident, Barry Island had been one of their favourite places to get away from it all without going away too far, and the sight, sounds and smells of the ocean had always had a relaxing, rejuvenating effect on him. Grinning inwardly, he let Jack fidget for another moment and then he couldn’t wait longer.

“I’d love to go, Cariad!” His bright smile for his husband was genuine and from the heart. “You know that spending time with you is always my very best thing to do.”

“Yeah!” Jack bounced in his seat. “I printed out a whole list of things we can do!” He pulled out several pieces of paper he’d been sitting on. “We can go first thing in the morning, leave really early, and as soon as we get there I’ll rent us one of those small beach huts so that you have a place to get out of the sun and rest up if you need to, then I was hoping we could pop into Whitmore and Jackson for a proper fry-up?” He looked at Ianto, child-like pleading in his eyes. Consisting of fried eggs, baked beans, bacon, sausages, fried potato cakes, sautéed mushrooms and well-buttered toast, Jack had declared it his favourite thing to eat but Ianto rarely allowed him to eat so much fried and fatty food at one time, no matter how delicious it was all together. 

“I think that cos it’s our holiday, all the rules are out the window, Cariad. You can all pig out all you want, I promise.” Ianto smiled indulgently as he reached over and took Jack’s hand in his.

“Yeah!” Jack cheered enthusiastically again. “After that we can have a coffee at Marcos…” he consulted one of the pages, “I’m sorry, it says to get an espresso at Marcos.” Looking up at Ianto he amended, “If you don’t want to drink someone else’s coffee, we can always get an ice cream.”

“Or…” Ianto’s eyes twinkled over the rim of his coffee mug. “We could get both.”

“Oooo! Naughty!” Jack laughed and then he waved two small pieces of paper across the table. “In hopeful anticipation, I got us tickets… okay, Tosh got us tickets to The Small Space!” Renowned as the smallest theatre in the UK with only twenty seats, tickets for popular events were often at a premium. “They’re showing the 1944 version of ‘Gaslight’ with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer! It’s the scary black-and-white one before they colourised it.” A wistful look crossed his face. “I saw it on base one night, showing for the soldiers, flyers, and patients from the hospital with the nurses as dates being shared by all. I cannot tell you how many times I held my breath waiting to see what would happen next!”

“I’d like that,” Ianto nodded. “What else does your list suggest?”

“Well, we always get our fish-n-chips from Boofy’s, cos they are the best, but how about this time we go to Porthkerry Park for a picnic and then hop on that little tourist train and take the tour around the island, what do you think?”

Touched that Jack had taken the time to find so many things for them to do, Ianto stood up, gathering their empty coffee mugs with him. After refilling them, he returned to the table, setting Jack’s down in front of him before kissing him on the head. “I think it’s going to be our best holiday ever, Cariad.”

“If we have time we can go to Pleasure Beach and go on all the rides and I’ll play the arcade games and win you lots of stuffed animals!” 

Ianto laughed. “I’d like to see that!”

“Finally, just before we go home, we’ll make our usual stop at the Beach Hut and get our Barry Island souvenir to add to our collection.” 

During the years Jack and Ianto had been together the visit to Barry Island had become an annual tradition for them, and sometimes they’d managed to go more than once. Now, in a small corner curios cabinet, they had a collection of fourteen small but significant souvenirs of their time away together. Hung pride-of-place next to the curios was their very first purchase, a traditional Welsh loving spoon; this one combined a heart for love with an anchor, which Jack said symbolised his settling down. “Ianto Jones, you are the anchor my heart has been searching for across time and the Universe.” His simple declaration had reduced Ianto to a weepy mess as he’d hugged his beloved.

“It sounds like the perfect day with you,” Ianto again gripped Jack’s hand. “I’m looking very forward to it.”

Jack preened. “No Torchwood, no Weevils, nothing but me and you being tourists.”


	6. Chapter 6

Until It's Time for You to Go

Chapter Six

When the day arrived, they were actually twenty-five minutes ahead of schedule when they pulled out of the drive and while they were away, Toshiko slipped into their house and placed sensors in strategic locations which would send an alert to both the Hub and to Jack’s wrist strap should Ianto fall again. 

By the end of the day they hadn’t done as many things as Jack had planned, but they had managed their favourites, including Jack’s high-calorie breakfast and eating their ice cream sitting on a bench watching all the people go by. They’d traded the fish-n-chips picnic in the park for a lovely afternoon tea at a quaint little restaurant with a great view of the ocean – Ianto had been particularly enamoured with their open-faced shrimp salad sandwich, even asking the chef for and getting the recipe – and then they spent a couple of fun-filled hours in the amusement park, riding the Ferris wheel several times, eating candy floss and popcorn, and Jack had a great time showing off at the arcade games, eventually winning Ianto the prize of his choice. The small memento they’d chosen to commemorate the trip was a small sea dragon floating in the ocean with bits of seaweed around it, hand-crafted from blown glass by a local artist.

Ianto’s favourite part of the day was The Small Space; they’d thoroughly enjoyed holding hands while watching ‘Gaslight’, even sneaking a few kisses in the dark. He was exhausted by the time they’d finished their adventures for the day, and he’d fallen asleep within minutes of leaving the car park, his head against the window cradled by the red Welsh dragon plushy toy that Jack had won for him, not waking until Jack shook his shoulder. 

Being a man who spent ninety-nine percent of his time in his home and so knew every sight, scent and sound of it intimately, Ianto knew immediately that someone had been there and that something was different. He could just feel it in his bones and as Jack helped him off with his coat, Ianto’s eyes darted around, seeking the changes but not finding any. However when he caught the faintest whiff of Tosh’s delicate White Jasmine perfume, he knew that whatever the tech genius had done it was for his own good.

“Thank you, Cariad.” Ianto kissed Jack’s cheek. “Thank you for loving me so much.”

“Okay…” Jack returned the kiss, his eyes flitting around. He knew where the sensors were to be installed but even he couldn’t find them. ‘So that can’t be it...’ Deciding to go with the obvious, he replied, “I had a great time with you today; I’m glad you enjoyed the day out in the sun.”

After that day, Jack spent as much time as he possibly could with him but being the head of Torchwood came with too much responsibility. Worrying about Ianto and his safety meant that Jack was rarely fully engaged with what was going on with Torchwood. 

Finally, after one close call too many, Owen suggested that they try hiring a day nurse, someone to help Ianto when he needed it or just be there as a companion when he didn’t. So along came a sweet young woman named Megwyn Godwyn, just a year out of nursing school, who tried very hard to please Ianto but no matter what she did she just never met his high expectations or his demands that things be done the perfect way, the Ianto Jones way. 

Jack then decided that a solidly built older woman in her mid-fifties named Bethan – “That’s Mrs Penry, to you, young man…” – would be less easily intimidated by the Jones Eyebrow and he was right. Mrs Penry refused to take any of Ianto’s stubbornness and she made sure he was up each morning, bathed, dressed and fed with military precision. She was a retired member of the British Royal Army who’d chosen a second career as a nurse and she brooked no nonsense from Mr Jones.

Unfortunately, four months after Mrs Penry started, her father suffered a debilitating stroke and his disabled wife was unable to care for him on her own, so Mrs Penry regretfully tendered her resignation, saying that “taking care of you, young man, has been so much like taking care of my own son. I lost Joshua in Afghanistan.” She’d looked very sad for a moment but then pulled herself together and gave him a brief but heartfelt hug. “Take care, Ianto…” – it was the only time she’d ever used his first name, preferring to call him Mr Jones or young man – “I will keep you in my prayers.” And with that she and her overnight bag – a ‘just in case’ for those rare nights when Jack didn’t make it home – were gone.

Several other day nurses came and went but they were all dismal failures. One was only interested in being on her mobile taking selfies and texting endlessly, leaving Ianto to do things for himself as if she weren’t there at all. There was a male who was just way too handsy in the bath for the Welshman’s comfort, and one day Jack came home unexpectedly and caught another female trying to steal money from Ianto’s wallet while he slept in the other room. 

“Ianto, I don’t know what else we can do.” Jack held his husband’s hand tightly to his chest. 

“What would you think… maybe I could try coming in to the Hub again? I won’t do anything, not even make coffee or order lunch; I’ll just sit there, I promise!” 

Seeing the hope in Ianto’s eyes, it broke Jack’s heart to say no. “Tell me the truth, Ianto Harkness-Jones, exactly how long do you honestly think you’d be content to just sit there and let Torchwood go on all around you?”

“You’re right,” Ianto swallowed his disappointment and put on a brave smile. “I’d be fixing Owen’s reports for him within the hour.” 

Jack helped Ianto prepare for bed, tucking him in before taking care of his own evening needs and then he turned off the lights and crawled beneath the duvet. Pulling Ianto into his chest, Jack spooned him from behind, burying his face in the younger man’s neck, breathing in that special something that was Ianto.

“You know, Yan,” Jack spoke quietly in the dark, as though he knew what he had to say was not going to be well received.

“Yes?” Ianto Jones, the man who knew everything knew something important was going to change in the next few moments.

“A little while ago I asked Tosh to look…” Jack took a deep breath and let it out in a warm puff against Ianto’s shoulder. 

“It’s all right, Cariad, I know.”

“You do? But how?” Jack was bewildered. “Tosh promised…”

Ianto shifted so that he was lying on his back, looking at his husband. “Tosh never said a word.”

Jack propped his head up on one hand and gazed down at Ianto. “Then how do…”

“It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while myself.” Ianto stroked Jack’s face. “I’ve always known this wasn’t going to end well, Cariad.”

“Owen is still looking for a cure.” Jack tried to sound encouraging.

“I know he is, but we both know that even if he does luck onto something it will come too late.”

Choking back tears, Jack pulled his beloved Welshman closer to him. “Oh, Yan…”

“It’s all right,” Ianto let his husband weep into his chest, stroking his hair and whispering sweet nothings in his ear. A few minutes later Jack got himself under control and slipped out of their bed.

“Just gonna wash my face, be right back.”

When Jack had composed himself he returned to the bedroom, his red-rimmed eyes the only indication that he’d been upset. Ianto was leaning against the headboard, propped up by pillows, and he held up the duvet invitingly. “Come here, you silly old fool.” Once Jack was comfortable, Ianto continued.

“Okay, I’ve been doing my own research and I’ve found a nice home not too far from here. It’s only been open for about eight months, and according to its website, it offers top-of-the-line care including daily exercise in heated pools, plus they have an in-house masseuse, and once in a while they even offer a couples’ massage if you’d like to join me one day.”

“Yan…” Jack didn’t know what to say; he’d locked himself in his office and cried bitterly after Toshiko had given him a short list of facilities that offered specialised treatment in either a retirement home setting for those more independent or in a care setting for patients needing access to twenty-four hour care. 

“Jack, it’s all right,” Ianto took his husband’s hand in his and kissed the palm, curling his fingers over it. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about all this and get used to the idea, but I understand that it’s hard for you.”

“This last year has been…” The normally glib Jack Harkness was at a loss for words. “I always thought we’d have more time. I pictured us… you…” Tears choked him and even though he tried hard to swallow them down it was to no avail. Before he could stop it a loud sob broke free, releasing the floodgate on a bout of fresh tears. 

“Oh, Cariad,” Ianto gathered him into his arms. “I love you so much. I always will.”

(*****) 

They visiting the privately owned care home one morning, touring the facilities, meeting some of the staff and residents, and making arrangements for Ianto to move in. Jack had been impressed with the range of amenities offered, including a small cinema, two pools, one indoors and heated, the other outdoors, a well-equipped gym, a kitchen that served both a buffet and made-to-order meals which could be eaten in the dining room or served in the resident’s room. There were well-maintained gardens with plenty of seats, benches and even a few tables and chairs for those wishing to rest or just enjoy their surroundings. All in all, Jack could see that Ianto would be very comfortable there, even though his heart was breaking knowing that they had just taken one more step toward the end.

Ianto’s move from the Victorian home he and Jack had shared for so long was done quietly and with proper Ianto Jones efficiently. Knowing the move was inevitable, Ianto had been in planning mode for a while; he’d already written a list of things he definitely wanted to take with him, including certain books, DVDs and CDs, and various other odds and ends. His clothing needs were simple, comfortable and casual; the three-piece suits with their matching shirts and ties had been worn in a long time and they stayed at home in the wardrobe. 

The room he’d chosen in the private living facility was on the ground floor with the added luxury of a rather small but private garden area. It was quite spacious, allowing him to put in a small double bed – the perfect size for the room and still let two grown men sleep comfortably together. There was enough room for his favourite chair and most importantly the small triangular-shaped curios cabinet. It fit nicely into a corner, out of the way, but still visible from the bed. Directly across from the bed where Ianto could clearly see it every time his head was on his pillows was the loving spoon. Jack had insisted Ianto take it with him even though Ianto thought it should remain in their home as a comfort for Jack.

Going home that first night, after staying until Ianto had fallen asleep, Jack sat in his chair, looking at the empty space where Ianto’s chair used to be and the fact that his husband was never going to come home again suddenly came crashing in on him. With a great wail of anguish and despair he broke into heart-wrenching sobs, falling from his chair to his knees, finally curling up in a ball on the floor, frozen with grief.

(*****) 

In the early days of Ianto’s ‘retirement’, Jack was afraid that he would quickly become bored so he was constantly bringing home new books, magazines and jigsaw puzzles to keep him occupied, but then he remembered Ianto telling him that when he was younger he’d enjoyed painting. Realising that he’d just it upon the perfect thing, Jack had gone to HobbyCraft Cardiff on Leckwith Road and with the help of a very knowledge clerk, he’d brought home every art supply Ianto could possibly need to begin painting again.

With Andy Davidson’s help – he turned out to be quite the dab hand with carpentry and woodworking – Jack was able to create an easy-to-move painting easel on wheels. It was self-contained, with enough shelves, cabinets, bins and receptacles for all his needs but when closed it actually took up very little room considering it=s storage capacity. It could be rolled around to catch the best light coming through the over-sized French doors and best of all, on days when Ianto simply did not want to or was not able to get up, the easel platform itself pivoted over the bed and within easy reach.

As a child Ianto had always enjoyed colouring and drawing, but at Uni his talent really blossomed when he took an art class and he discovered a true aptitude for watercolours. When he worked as an archivist at Canary Wharf and he went home each night and had regular days off he was able to paint, often going out to the various parks in London, each one with its own unique qualities. One of his favourite places to go was the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, where he would spend hours sketching and painting the myriad plants and flowers. In the fall when the weather began to change he would wander through the five hundred acres of wild woodland at Wakehurst, the world’s largest seed conservation project, painting the fiery colours of turning leaves.

Despite the clever easel Andy and Jack had built based on his own design, Ianto had done his best to ignore all the brushes and tubes of paint, the canvases and pads of watercolour paper, but in the end he’d given in to the need to be creative once more. There were times when he’d be sitting in front of the easel with his morning coffee when Jack left for work and when Jack returned later that evening Ianto would still be there. Soon his collection of finished work was framed and hung on the walls of his room and throughout their home while others stood in the corner or were stacked in the bookcase.

Unbeknownst to Ianto, Jack contacted an old friend from London and arranged for a small gallery showing of Ianto’s paintings in Cardiff, which was a smashing success. That led to a larger exhibit in London and from there Ianto’s name took off in the art world. His landscapes were compared to those of Queen Victoria and Prince Charles, John Sell Cotman and especially Romantic artist Richard Wilson.

At first, when Ianto learned what Jack had done he was angry beyond measure. “How could you go behind my back?!” he’d shouted. “My paintings are private, between you and me, not for the world and his wife to gawk at!” Eventually, however, the news that the Queen herself admired his work soothed his temper and he gifted her with a small watercolour of Balmoral Castle for her personal collection. 

Over the years Ianto had worked with Torchwood Three, he had developed a close relationship with Queen Elizabeth and her family; she had been kept apprised of Ianto’s situation and when she learned that her favourite Welshman had finally moved into the care facility she put a quiet word in the ear of a general at UNIT. Within two days Martha Jones found herself seconded to Torchwood Three as its leader. 

Andy Davidson had been hired away from the Heddlu to be the new police liaison a few months after Gwen was removed and he turned out to be quite an effective field agent. His logical and efficient approach to unusual situations and his ability to calm the public and deal with witnesses reminded the team so much of Ianto, although he turned out to be rubbish at making coffee. Feeling badly about this, Andy took it upon himself to bring in the first round of coffee and pastries every morning, something for which Owen actually thanked him for… eventually.

Grateful beyond measure for Her Majesty’s intervention, Jack didn’t think twice before demoting himself to field agent so that the responsibilities which had kept him away from Ianto in the past now fell squarely on Martha’s shoulders. He was delighted to be able to spend every night with Ianto, going home in the morning to shower and change for the Hub, then returning to Ianto as soon as he got off work. He was determined to spend as much time with Ianto as possible before it was too late and he was gone.


	7. Chapter 7

Until It's Time for You to Go

Chapter Seven

Arriving mentally exhausted from his visit to the attorney’s office – for some reason, hearing Ianto’s will read aloud made his death feel so final, more so than his funeral – Jack quietly closed the front door behind him, toed off his boots and hung up his coat. He emptied his trouser pockets, leaving his keys and some loose change in the small bowl on the hall table and headed for the living room. He just wanted to lie down and sleep for a very long time. Since Ianto’s death, he’d been sleeping on the sofa, unable to even look at the bed he’d shared for so long with his friend, lover, husband. He’d moved all his clothes into the dining room and used the downstairs hall bathroom.

A few steps down the hall he began to notice an odd smell and he sniffed the air, frowned and then sniffed again, deeply. ‘Coffee? That’s coffee…’ There hadn’t been coffee brewed in the house since the day Ianto had moved out. Drawing his Webley, he crept quietly toward the kitchen and peeked his head around the door. The sight that met his eyes froze him in his tracks, his Webley dropping from unfeeling fingers. 

Standing next to the coffee machine, big as life, was Ianto Jones and he slowly turned to face Jack, holding out Jack’s blue-and-white-striped mug, which Ianto had washed and put away in the cupboard that last morning and which hadn’t seen the light of day since.

“Welcome home, Cariad.”

Jack felt the world suddenly closing in on him, there was a loud rushing sound in his ears and from very, very far away he felt himself crumbling to the floor, everything around him going black. He gradually became aware of fingers gently stroking his hair and of soft Welsh words being sung to him.

"Fe'ch cynhaliaf, (I will hold you)  
Caewch eich (Close enfold you)  
Caewch eich llygaid nawr (Close your eyes now)  
Cer i gysgu. (Go to sleep)

Hyfryd Darling, (Lovely darling)  
Byddaf yn eich gwarchod (I will guard you)  
Eich cadw chi o bob (Keep you from all)  
Gwae a niwed." (Woe and harm)

He lay there for a moment as consciousness returned and he realised that he was lying on the floor, his head cradled in someone’s lap, long fingers gently caressing his face… the familiarity of it all was so soothing… ‘I love having Ianto hold me when I’m coming back to life/…’ 

And then reality crashed into his brain and he frantically scrambled away coming to a stop when his back hit the wall and he sat there for a moment, his heart pounding, his breath coming in gasps, his eyes wide and staring in disbelief at the man seated on the floor in front of him.

“You…” he whispered. “You can’t… Ianto, you can’t be here!” 

The man smiled gently. “Jack, it’s all right.”

“No, it’s not!” Tears started flowing down Jack’s cheeks. “You’re not supposed to be here.” 

“I understand, but please let me explain…”

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Jack sounded like a broken record. “You can’t be…”

The man stood up slowly and reached out his hand and without thinking about it, Jack automatically took it, allowing him to help him to his feet.

The warmth of the hand in his was startling and Jack snatched his back, holding it against his chest like he’d been burnt. “No…”

“Come with me, Cariad.” The man retrieved the striped mug from the floor, turned around and went back into the kitchen where he emptied the mug into the sink and then refilled it and a second one with fresh, hot coffee. “Sit down and drink this,” and he set the mugs on the table, then pulled out a seat invitingly. He sat down and waited patiently.

Feeling like he had no control over his own body, Jack found himself sitting next to the man, lifting the mug to his nose and breathing in deeply. He hadn’t smelt the aroma of Ianto’s coffee in so long and the memories that sprang to mind brought tears to his eyes. Ignoring his little voice which said, ‘You really shouldn’t drink that, he could be an alien and it could be poisoned, you know’, Jack took a deep drink, letting the hot liquid wash over his tongue, savouring a flavour he knew he would never forget no matter how long his life.

“Now,” the man’s eyes twinkled over the rim of his mug, “do you know anyone else who can make coffee this good?”

Jack studied the man sitting by him through narrowed eyes. Everything about him screamed Ianto Jones, from the soft dark hair that curled along his collar to the sparkling blue-grey eyes the colour of a stormy ocean. He took in the impeccably tailored three-piece suit and the carefully knotted silk tie he definitely remembered buying Christmas before last. He glanced at the cute button nose before his gaze landed on and then lingered on the Cupid-bow lips he could almost feel against his. His hand involuntarily reached out to touch the man’s lips but he yanked it back before making contact.

“You can’t be here,” he whispered so softly that the man wasn’t quite sure he’d spoken. He reached out again and poked the man’s shoulder, his eyes widening with amazement when it didn’t pass right through.

“Jack, it’s all right,” the man soothed. “I am not a hologram or a ghost or a figment of your grief. I am very real.”

Jack held his mug in an iron grip to keep from touching the man again; his hands were itching to stroke his skin, to run his fingers through his hair, to feel the beating of his heart. “How…” Jack shook his head and fell back on the familiar “You can’t be here” but this time there was a note of pleading in his voice, a silent please at the end of the line.

The man reached out and gently prised one of Jack’s hands free from the mug and cradled it in his, tightly enough for Jack to feel the heat from his skin but loosely enough that Jack could pull back if he wanted.

“Does this feel real to you, Cariad?” The man’s thumb stroked across the back of Jack’s hand, sending tingles down Jack’s spine. “Does this feel the same as you remember?” He lifted Jack’s hand to his lips and kissed it.

Jack drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, afraid that no matter how he answered the man would take his hand away. “Ianto?”

The man grinned mischievously. “And here I was thinking maybe you didn’t remember my name.”

“How is this possible? Ianto, you…” Jack gulped, finding it hard to say the actual words. “You’re gone, you passed…”

“I know, Jack, but hear me out.” Ianto stood and picked up his mug, refreshing it and holding out the pot to Jack who nodded yes. “Let’s go to the lounge and get comfortable, yeah?” He led the way from the kitchen to the front room, sitting down in his usual spot on the sofa. Jack followed slowly automatically going toward the sofa as well, toward his own spot next to Ianto but at the last second he stopped and sat down in the armchair instead. He didn’t miss the fleeting look of disappointment that flashed through Ianto’s eyes and it hurt his heart but he wasn’t yet ready to accept the miracle before him.

“Where would you like me to start?” Ianto sipped his coffee, pushing the feeling of disappointment that Jack chose to sit apart from him to the back of his mind. “Do you want to ask me questions now or would you prefer to just listen first and then ask later? I think that might be easier, but you choose.”

“Ummm…” Jack searched his mind; there were so many thing he wanted to know but he couldn’t organise his thoughts enough to ask coherent questions.

Ianto nodded, reading the indecision on Jack’s face and understanding the problem. “It’s all right, Cariad,” he said softly. “How about I tell you what happened and if you have any questions or comments along the way, you interrupt me, okay?” He smiled that special smile that only Jack ever saw and Jack’s immortal heart skipped a beat.

“Uh-huh…” He felt like a fool, unable to make more than nonsensical noises.

“All right, then,” Ianto settled back in his seat and cradled his mug and then he smiled when he saw Jack unconsciously do the same thing.

“Years ago,” he began, “long before the accident with the party ball ever happened, I… your Ianto, made contact with the Doctor and took a short trip with him. I have to say he was nothing at all like the man you described, Jack. This man was tall and thin, almost gangly looking, like he hadn’t quite grown into his limbs, and he had this shock of unruly hair that kept falling down over his forehead. He wore a bow tie, a real old-fashioned, tie-it-yourself bow tie just like the ones I remember my grandfather wearing when I was a boy.” The man shook his head and grinned. “When the Doctor arrived he stuck his head out the door and he was wearing a Fez. Later I found out that he actually has a room full of them! I mean, who on earth wears a Fez?”

“On Earth?”

“Guess I answered my own question there, didn’t I,” the man chuckled. “Where was I?”

“How…?”

“Martha. I called her and told her what I wanted to do and she gave me the Doctor’s telephone number.”

“Ah-hah…” Jack sipped his coffee. “I don’t remember you… him… ever being gone.”

“You wouldn’t,” the man shook his head. “You never knew because for once the Time Lord actually paid attention to time and got me back to the Hub before you and the team returned from a retrieval in St Donat’s castle. I… Ianto had enough time to wipe all CCTV footage of him from Mainframe and put in some old stuff of me cleaning and puttering around.” 

“Why?”

“Just in case Toshiko looked, although I don’t know why she would.”

“No,” Jack frowned, “I mean, why did you call the Doctor?”

“I was… he was so worried about you, Cariad. I still am and I always will be. I… he told the Doctor all about the life the two of you have built together, he explained how much you had changed for the better since your last meeting. Jack, he begged the Doctor to look after you once he was gone, to take you away from here, away from Torchwood, away from Earth for a while, maybe even forever if that’s what it took.”

Jack couldn’t take his eyes off the man… the apparition… the memory sitting in front of him, holding a cup of steaming coffee. The little voice in the back of Jack’s head said what he was seeing was real; he could smell the freshly brewed coffee and he’d never met a ghost who smelled as lovely as his Ianto always had. He slowly stretched out his foot and nudged the other man’s, feeling just a bit of a thrill when his boot met the solidity of a well-polished shoe.

“Still real,” Ianto smiled when he felt Jack touch his foot. “Still solid, not a figment.”

Jack grinned at him, feeling silly. “Yeah.”

After a sip of coffee, Ianto continued. “My biggest fear has always been that you’re going to be alone for so much of your long life and that just breaks my heart, Cariad. The Doctor understood what I was trying to say and he admitted that he often worries about what will become of…”

“The Doctor hates me, Yan,” Jack frowned, hearing the Time Lord’s voice in his head telling him “…you’re just wrong, Jack…”

Ianto mirrored Jack’s frown but for a different reason. “He does not hate you, Jack.”

“Yes, he does. He told me so.”

“Jack,” Ianto rolled his eyes. “He never said he hated you; he actually cares for you very much.”

“He said I was wrong,” Jack insisted stubbornly.

“Yes, part of that is true,” Ianto admitted. “But it’s not you personally. You, Captain Jack Harkness, are wonderful man. You have a heart as big as the universe, you love with everything you have and that just one of the reasons why I love you so much.”

Jack didn’t know what to say. He heard the words coming from Ianto’s mouth and they warmed his heart immeasurably, but there was still part of his brain that said ‘Your Ianto died in your arms a few days ago; he cannot be sitting here now, talking to you.’

“The part of the Time Lord that makes him sensitive to the turning of the planets beneath his feet and to the passage of time, the deaths of old stars and the births of new ones also makes him sensitive to the part of you that makes you immortal. You’re like a…” Ianto searched for the right word and then it came to him, however Owen-like and crass it might be. “You’re like a fart in the timeline.”

In the middle of taking a sip from his mug, Jack couldn’t help himself, he snorted with laughter and coffee came out his nose making Ianto laugh as well as he jumped up, pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and gently mopped Jack’s face. 

When he could speak again, Jack stared in disbelief. “The Doctor thinks I’m a fart?!” 

“No, Cariad,” Ianto chuckled. “That’s my word. The Doctor still thinks you’re an impossible thing.” When he saw Jack’s face fall he hastily amended, “but that’s a good thing, cos it means you’re quite special.”

Jack allowed himself to be mollified. “Yeah, well, that part is true.”

“Yes, yes it is.”

Despite himself Jack wanted to hear more of what this man had to say. He still wasn’t ready to acknowledge him as Ianto, but he could feel himself getting closer to it. “Okay, so you were talking with the Doc about me.”

“I was,” Ianto nodded and then looked into his mug. “I need a refill, how about you?”

Jack gulped the remains of his coffee and held out his mug. “Yes, please.” He watched Ianto walk out of the room and suddenly he leapt from his chair, hurrying into the kitchen, not wanting to let the Welshman out of his sight. Then, not wanting to appear anxious, he leaned casually against the door jamb, watching Ianto move about the room as if he’d never left.

Well aware of Jack, he turned and handed him his fresh coffee. “Come on, you silly old fool,” and as he passed Jack in the doorway he hooked his arm through Jack’s and escorted him back to the lounge and this time, when he sat down on the sofa, Jack sat next to him even though he left plenty of space between them.

“Now where was I?”

“I am a fart,” Jack deadpanned.

“But a sweet fart, Cariad,” Ianto patted Jack’s leg comfortingly.

“Anywaaaay…” Jack prompted and sipped his coffee with great appreciation.

“You’re right,” Ianto nodded. “Anyway, the TARDIS took us into the void and we just floated there…”

“He didn’t take you anywhere?”

“That wasn’t the reason for the trip, Jack.”

“Oh yeah…” Jack frowned. “Too bad, cos you would love the libraries and book stores on…”

Ianto rolled his eyes. “Jack…?”

“Yeah?” He saw the look of patient indulgence on Ianto’s face. “Oh, right… I’ll tell you about that later; don’t let me forget.” 

“I’ll remind you, I promise.” Ianto sipped his coffee. “The Doctor and I talked for a very long time, about so much stuff, you, me, you and me, the work Torchwood is doing now, the bad things they did at Canary Wharf. He even told me about Rose and losing her to his Human/Time Lord meta-crisis twin. Oh Jack,” Ianto clutched the other man’s hand, “even though he wasn’t your Doctor anymore, he still looked so sad, so lost and alone and all I could think of was seeing that look in your eyes and it just broke my heart.” He reached up and stroked the side of Jack’s face, his touch so gentle. 

Seeing the raw emotions on Ianto’s face brought tears to Jack’s eyes. “I…” He honestly didn’t know what to say. 

“It’s all right.” Ianto brushed away a tear that was rolling down Jack’s face. “You have such a long, long lifetime ahead of you and I just can’t bear the idea of you being so alone…” His voice choked for a moment.

Jack didn’t know how to respond. During their time together, Jack and Ianto had never spoken about Jack’s endless life, preferring to concentrate on their here and now.

Ianto drained his coffee mug and set it down, watching with amusement as Jack did the same thing.

“You don’t know this, Jack, but the Doctor has been searching endlessly trying to find a way of… I don’t know, fixing you? Curing you? Changing you back?”

“He what?” Jack gaped. “No…”

“Yes.” Ianto’s tone was firm. “Everywhere he goes he tries to find something, anything that can end your immortality and make you mortal again. He even spent a month on The Library, a planet that’s literally nothing but one huge library, with billions and billions of books from all over the Universe. He accessed every volume he thought might be useful in any way searching for a way of making you mortal again.”

“I had no idea,” Jack’s voice was a bare whispered. “I honestly thought he hated me.”

“Jack, I promise,” Ianto shook his head, “he doesn’t hate you. If anything, he feels guilty, that it’s his fault…”

“But it’s not!”

“I know that, but it doesn’t change the way the Doctor feels.”

Jack’s shoulders slumped. In his deepest heart he knew that the Time Lord could search til the universe ended and never find a way to change him back.

Ianto stood up and held out his hand. “Hungry? Let’s find something to eat, yeah?”

(*****)

A/N: Ianto is singing part of a traditional Welsh lullaby, ‘Suo Gan’, composed anonymously in the early 1800s. It is a parent’s song of protection and responsibility. Suo Gan, or ‘lull song’, comes from the title’s translation (suo = lull; gân = song).


	8. Chapter 8

Until It's Time for You to Go 

Chapter Eight

An hour later Jack and Ianto returned to their seats on the sofa. Ianto had fixed them spaghetti carbonara and garlic bread, which they had devoured, both men finding themselves quite hungry. They didn’t talk much while they ate, just a bit of idle conversation, it was a reprieve for them both. 

About ten minutes after they sat down to eat, Ianto paused, his forkful of carefully spun pasta midway to his mouth and grimaced. “Would you believe that at one point,” he looked furtively left and right before leaning closer to Jack, “the Doctor made us fish fingers and custard for breakfast?” He shuddered as he felt his stomach roil and he set down his fork and sipped his water instead. “Jack, I swear it was the most disgusting thing I think I’ve ever seen, watching him dip those fingers in vanilla custard and then eat them.”

“Makes one of Owen’s alien autopsies look positively appealing, right?” Jack grinned cheekily before shovelling in a mouthful of pasta.

“You can say that ag… Don’t you dare, Jack Harkness!” Ianto pointed his finger at Jack as the man in question opened his mouth to speak, showing half-chewed food. “Now close your mouth and finish your dinner.”

He made a fresh pot of coffee and they nibbled on some of Jack’s favourite biscuits, Walker’s rich buttery shortbread, before sharing the washing up – Ianto washing and Jack drying, just like they’d done since the first day they’d lived together, so long ago. After refilling their mugs they left the kitchen.

“While we were in the void, the Doctor told me about the battle on the Game Station and how brave you were doing everything you could to stop the advance of the Daleks.”

Jack shook his head sadly. “It was a fool’s mission, Yan, doomed to failure right from the start. There are very few weapons in the universe that can take down a Dalek, and all we had were a few machine guns and lighter weight assault rifles. All I could hope for was slowing them down, keeping the Daleks at bay long enough for the Doctor to build his Delta-wave generator, which he said would destroy their ships.” His voice choked as he whispered, “So many people died, Yan, and there was nothing I could do.”

Ianto watched the sorrow etched on Jack’s face as he described the futility of the battle. He wanted so much to gather his husband in his arms and hold him close to his heart but he knew Jack hadn’t quite reached that level of acceptance that his Ianto Jones was alive and well yet.

“We talked for days, Jack, the Doctor questioned me endlessly about you, about Torchwood, about us, about our hopes and dreams, where we saw ourselves in five years, ten years, twenty.” Ianto smiled fondly. “So many of the questions were repeated time and again, like he was either testing me to see if I’d forget what I said earlier and so my answers might change or because he just enjoyed hearing the stories, I’m not sure.”

“The man does love a good story, both hearing them and telling them, that’s for sure.”

“Then he showed me to a lovely bedroom…”

“It was just perfect, right? The perfect mattress, the perfect pillows and sheets and duvet, the perfect colour scheme, everything made it the most perfect bedroom you’ve ever been in, the room of your dreams, right?”

Ianto nodded. “You’re right, I hadn’t even thought about it til now.” 

“Mine was the same way!” Jack exclaimed. “I remember times when thanks to the Doctor and his habit of getting us into trouble, I’d be sore and tired and bruised and when I’d get into bed the mattress had changed and sometimes it was warmed or it vibrated and massaged and one time, it was even a waterbed!” He chuckled. “She’s such a clever little minx.”

Ianto frowned. “We really must stop footnoting all the time, Jack, or we’re never going to get to the end of this story.”

“Footnoting?” Jack cocked his head. “What is that? Is it a… thing?”

Ianto patted Jack’s arm. “It’s all right, Cariad. It just means that we keep getting distracted by something we say and it leads to something else which leads to something else and if we’re not careful then we’ll lose track of the original whatever it was that we were talking about.”

Jack nodded, suitably impressed. “Huh… The Doc does it all the time but I never knew it had an actual name.”

“Does he ever!” Ianto laughed. 

“Want to bet he invented it?” Jack laughed heartily with him.

“You are so silly!” Ianto reached out and ran his thumb across Jack’s lips, wanting so much to kiss him. “The Doctor spent the next several days just pacing the halls of the TARDIS endlessly; he barely even ate although I did fix him sandwiches and tea.” Ianto sighed. “I could hear him mumbling to himself and talking to the TARDIS, although he didn’t talk to me.

“I was sound asleep when he suddenly burst into my room like a madman – scared the shite out me, Jack! – yelling at me to hurry up and get dressed and join him in the lab.” Ianto shook his head. “I tried to tell him I didn’t know where the lab was but he was gone, yelling over his shoulder for me to ‘…just hurry up already!’ The door slammed shut behind him and it was so quiet again, like being in the eye of a hurricane.”

“Mmmm…” Jack wanted to say something but he managed to keep his mouth shut.

Ianto smiled at him, knowing the effort it took for his husband to stay quiet. “I shouldn’t have worried, somehow the lab was right across the hall from my room although I will swear that that door had not been there when I went to bed.”

This time Jack couldn’t stop himself in time. “If it’s important, the TARDIS can be quite the helping hand.” Then his eyes widened and he clapped his hand over his mouth. “Fmorfy!”

“What?”

Jack loosened his fingers just enough to say “Sorry!” before tightening his grip again.

Ianto stared at him for a moment then rolled his eyes. “As I was saying, when I opened this new door he was in there going through cupboards and drawers, tossing things around… I kid you not, Jack, in the few minutes it took me to get dressed he’d actually made a bigger mess than Owen ever has during one of his temper tantrums. Half the books had been knocked off the shelves and there were so many papers on the floor, it looked like it snowed. Oh, and the TARDIS was making these weird noises.”

This time Jack nodded vigorously and Ianto could see he really wanted to say something. “It’s okay, Jack, what is it?”

“She hates disorder and mess as much as you do.” Jack spoke quickly. “She was yelling at him.” 

“That is what it sounded like.” Ianto nodded with understanding. “Amazing creature, isn’t she.”

Jack pursed his lips tightly shut and shook his head up and down vigorously. “Mmm-hmm!”

“Finally, after nearly an hour of going through every cupboard, drawer, shelf and cubby, he just threw his hands up in the air and started ranting in a language I know I didn’t know, but the strange words I could hear in my ears were in English in my head.”

“That’s the TARDIS’ translation matrix, a telepathic field, once she puts it in your head you can understand just about every language in the known universe.”

Ianto considered that for a moment; on one hand, the idea that the TARDIS had violated his mind and put something there no matter how useful was a bit unnerving, but on the other hand, he realised just how handy such an advantage would be. Then something clicked in his memory. “So it was the TARDIS and not Tosh’s translator that let me understand the Modlintrey and the Wilixx back then.” 

“Yep.” Jack unconsciously mimicked the way Ianto always popped his ‘P’s.

“Then he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me down the hallway into his library and Cariad, I think I actually swooned for a moment,” Ianto a slight blush coloured his cheeks. “I have never seen such a beautiful place!” He paused, remembering the high vaulted ceilings exquisitely painted with scenes from all around the Universe as well as the vast expanse of shelves filled to overflowing with books of every size and colour; he especially liked the spiral staircases that appeared to simply float between the numerous levels. On each end of the room were hung massive multi-tiered chandeliers that rivalled those in any royal palace; their hand-blown and hand-cut lead crystals sparkled brighter than the stars in the night sky. 

“I could have wandered around there for days just looking in the niches that were scattered here and there, all housing various paintings, vases and urns, statues and busts and object d’art created by artists from planets the Doctor had visited across the universe.” Ianto sighed. “And here I was thinking that seeing the mummies in the Ancient Egypt collection, the Rosetta Stone, and the Parthenon sculptures in London’s British Museum were spectacular!”

The library had been created from many different hardwoods representing forests from around the Universe and they were all highly polished, making the room glow in the light from the four fireplaces and dozens of wall sconces. He never did figure out how candles could light the library was so brightly that he could read without any problem, although he did enjoy standing in the beams of coloured light that flowed through the stained glass windows. When he’d asked the Doctor how there could be sunlight inside a ship floating in the black nothingness of the void, the Time Lord just smiled and tapped the side of his nose, saying the TARDIS was a rare and wonderful creature.

“He once told me that of all the places on the TARDIS, the library was his most favourite,” Jack nodded. “Said his second was the conservatory and gardens.”

“Didn’t see that.”

“I did, we went on a picnic in there.” Jack thought back. “It was the most perfect summer’s day ever, the sun was just warm enough but not too hot, just enough of a soft breeze to make sure we were always comfortable, and there were lots of flowers in every colour imaginable. We were on a small hill and there was a lake below us and there were trees as far as the eye could see. We could lie back and hear birdsong and smell the flowers and watch the clouds floating across the sky.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“It was, it really was,” Jack replied wistfully. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.” He perked up. “How about some more coffee? I haven’t had it in so long.”

Ianto’s eyebrow rose. “You’ve just had quite a bit, Cariad.”

Jack laughed happily. “You know what I mean!”

(*****) 

This time when the men lowered themselves on the sofa they sat close enough that their legs were touching. “Now, where were we?” 

“You and the Doc were in the library…” 

“Okay, library…” Ianto resolutely got their conversation back on track. “Even with the TARDIS helping to steer us through the library to books and illustrated manuscripts she thought might help, in the end we didn’t find anything.” He sighed deeply. “The Doctor was so upset Jack that I didn’t see him again for almost three days. I don’t know where he went but…”

“The TARDIS has hundreds of rooms and probably miles of hallways if she thinks that’s what he needs.”

Ianto nodded. “Wouldn’t surprise me. I know I spent hours wandering around, and I don’t think I was ever in the same place twice.” 

“Sometimes she’ll move things around, make a room that was right off the console room to an hour’s walk away if she’s mad at you and wants to punish you. One time…”

“Footnoting, Cariad, remember?”

“Oh yeah!” Jack mimed zipping his lips and grinned mischievously.

“Finally, he reappeared, drank two pots of tea, ate three sandwiches and an entire packet of Jammy Dodgers before he explained that he’d been doing some research into that day on the Game Station, going over the recordings and readings the TARDIS made. He said he was pretty sure he understood what had happened, but he was not completely positive.”

Jack felt a chill run down his spine as the vivid memory of the last time he’d come face to face with a Dalek sprang to mind. “EXTERMINATE!!!” He swallowed the bile that rose in this throat and concentrated on the sound of Ianto’s voice.

“He tried to ma…” Ianto’s voice broke and he cleared his throat. “He couldn’t make your Ianto immortal like you… not the way you were made immortal anyway… he did try, really he did, but whatever magic was wrought that day on the Game Station was a fluke, a one-off. He finally gave up trying, deciding that Rose Tyler was the missing element, her pure love and desire to save you couldn’t be replicated.”

A fond smile crossed Jack’s face. The day he’d seen Rose’s name on the list of the dead at Canary Wharf he’d felt a knife pierce his heart, leaving a gaping wound. He’d never met a more selfless human in his life… until he’d met Ianto Jones. Hearing the Doctor tell him that she had survived and was living safe and well in a parallel universe had healed that wound and made his heart sing. His only regret was that Rose and the Doctor weren’t together; in his humble opinion she was probably the best thing that had ever happened to the Time Lord.

“I could see how truly disappointed the Doctor was and I tried to tell him that it was all right, that I’d just make very sure that we make the time we had together the best life you’d ever had so that you’d remember it for as long as possible.”

Tears filled Jack’s eyes and he bit the inside of his lip. In his heart he knew that he would always remember Ianto Jones as the greatest love of his unbearably long life.

Ianto could feel the flood of emotions from the man beside him but chose to pretend he didn’t notice, knowing that if he said something that Jack would break down and he wanted to leave his husband his dignity.

“The Doctor disappeared again but only for a few hours this time and when he came back he was a bit manic as he said that he had arrived at as he put it, ‘the only possible solution’, and he sent the TARDIS to 22nd century Earth to an acid-mining factory set in the ruins of the 13th century St John's Monastery, which is on an island in the middle of the sea. The company used ‘gangers’ to perform the hazardous work, doppelgangers of the miners themselves, made from a vat of ‘Flesh’. The Doctor explained that it is fully programmable matter which can replicate any living organism. These gangers are controlled by the real people who sleep in the harnesses situated around the vat.”

“How did he ever find something like that?” Jack was quite intrigued by the notion of having another Jack around for a bit of ‘fun and games Harkness-style’.

“Apparently the TARDIS had been forced to land there previously after she was hit by a solar wave,” Ianto explained, “and after getting some strange readings, he, Amy and Rory…”

“Who?”

“The Doctor’s companions… they’re a married couple. Been with the Doctor for quite a while now, or at least they had been back when I was there, but they were in London for Rory’s dad’s sixtieth birthday at the time so I never got to meet them.”

“Huh…” Jack considered this. In all the years he’d known the Doctor, he’d never known him to have more than one companion at a time, other than the short while he and Rose had both travelled with the Time Lord.

“Anyway, he decided to investigate the weird readings and that’s how they found this vat of living Flesh; it was used to create workers because mining the acid was determined to be too hazardous for humans. Then he realised that even though the gangers were identical in every way to the humans right down to their memories and emotions, when the miners were done working for the day they just dissolved the gangers back into liquid flesh.”

“Good grief!” Jack grimaced with horror. “That’s barbaric!” 

“While they were there, the island was hit by a massive solar wave that changed the genetic make-up of the Flesh, making the gangers self-aware and allowing them to control themselves. At the end of that first trip there, the Doctor ended up taking two of those gangers into the TARDIS where he discovered that exposure to her engines permanently stabilised the gangers, turning them into true human beings.” 

Jack beamed like a proud parent. “See? I told you she was amazing!”

“There was a brief time when Amy, Rory and the Doctor… well, two Doctors, actually, cos he’d been copied into a ganger… were in other parts of the Monastery – which is when we arrived – we went to the Flesh, the Doctor strapped me into one of those harnesses and within moments, a ganger of me emerged from the conversion tub. Thanks to that electric shock from the solar wave, it was self-aware and didn’t need me controlling it, so the Doctor let me free from the harness and we dashed back into the TARDIS.”


	9. Chapter 9

Until It's Time for You to Go 

Chapter Nine

Trying hard to swallow down the sudden surge of envy that bubbled up as he listened to and imagined Ianto’s adventure with the Doctor, Jack shifted in his seat. “Sounds like you had quite the time.”

Ianto nodded. “It was quite exciting, I will admit. I can see why you miss travelling with him so much.”

Jack drained the last of his coffee and set the mug on the table. “So, all that means…”

“A very rare type of radiation that the TARDIS’ engine emits stabilised the matrix of my ganger thus ensuring that the flesh would not break down and then to make sure it would last forever, the TARDIS opened a small panel at the base of her console and shone a light, a beautiful golden light in my eyes… it reached out to me with delicate tendrils and I could feel it caressing me, seeping into my skin and flowing through my veins. It was so bright but yet it wasn’t blinding, I could still see inside her and she’s incredible! I felt like I could see forever and I could see the entire Universe in her. It’s one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced.” There was the shimmer of tears in Ianto’s eyes as he remembered what he’d seen.

“I’ve never seen that.” Jack shook his head sadly. “I was dead when Rose did whatever she did.”

“I’m sorry you missed it, but it means that I will live as long as you will, Jack,” Ianto smiled briefly, “until the end of time.”

Jack’s heart skipped a beat and he experienced a tiny flicker of hope in spite of himself. “Really?” 

“Really,” Ianto stated emphatically. “I will die temporarily just like you do and I will resurrect, the Doctor just said that it might take longer for me, he wasn’t sure.”

“Didn’t test the theory, huh?” Jack teased as he reached out and poked Ianto in the arm.

“Uh, that would be no.” 

“So, now you’re an immortal Ianto with all his memories and emotions and everything, but you were created a very long time ago. A lot has happened from then til now. How are you so current and where have you been all this time?”

“Just before he brought the original Ianto Jones back here, Doctor implanted a tiny device in the base of his skull and every night while he slept it transmitted a complete scan of every single nano-second of his life to the TARDIS and no matter when or where she was she updated the original image he took while your Ianto was with him. I have every single memory no matter how big or small, good or bad, that your Ianto had right up to the very moment of his death. When the implant told the TARDIS that he had passed away, she and the Doctor brought me to you.”

Jack sat back and searched Ianto’s face, looking at every detail of his features, seeing the tiny crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes, the way his Cupid’s bow mouth turned up when he smiled, and there on his neck just below the jawline the nearly invisible scar left from his encounter with the cannibals in the Brecon Beacons. Everything he possessed was telling Jack that through a Time Lord-wrought miracle, his Ianto Jones was sitting there beside him on the sofa sipping coffee from a mug with a red Welsh dragon on it.

“But where have you been all these years?”

Ianto finished his coffee, set the mug down by Jack’s and answered, “I’ve been travelling with the Doctor.”

“You’re kidding!” Jack leaned forward, leaving just inches between them. “What did you think? Where did you go? Did he get you into all sorts of weird troubles and then tell you to run?” He rattled off his questions in rapid-fire succession, his excitement getting the better of him.

“I have to say being the companion of a Time Lord is a truly unique experience.” Ianto ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “As for the rest? Every place we went and everything we did is fully documented in my diaries and I give you my permission to read them.”

Jack lit up like he’d just been given every Christmas and birthday present of his entire life all at once. “Really!” 

Ianto rolled his eyes. “Yes, really, Jack. They’re in the library on the shelves to the left of the door and they’re in chronological order. I’d like you to keep them that way, please.” He hadn’t quite finished speaking when Jack was on his feet and halfway across the room. 

“Ahemmm…” 

Jack came to a screeching halt and turned to look at Ianto with a sheepish grin before returning to the sofa. “Maybe that can wait til later, yeah?”

(*****) 

Epilogue

Jack came out of the bathroom, freshly showered and shaved, his hair still damp, dressed for day except for his boots which were in the entry way and his braces which hung down by his sides. As he sat down at the kitchen table, Ianto produced a mug of freshly brewed coffee, “…industrial strength, just the way you like…” and a plate of plump scones just out of the oven. As he added pots of clotted crème and homemade strawberry jam, Jack looked at him suspiciously.

“What’s all this in aid of, Yan? Did you back the ship into the docking bay door again?”

Ianto rolled his eyes. “That was nearly a hundred years ago, Jack!”

“Yeah, but I can still see the dent.” Jack sniffed piteously. “Poor Myfanwy, bouncing off that space station like a ping-pong ball.”

“You know perfectly well that that panel was replaced decades ago, Jack, there is no dent now.” Trying a different tack, Ianto picked up the plate of scones. “Well, I guess if you’re not in the mood to celebrate our three hundredth anniversary then I’ll just dump these in the bin.”

“No!” Jack hastily grabbed for the dish and once it was safely in front of him again, he snatched a scone and set it on his plate. He was halfway through slathering its halves with gobs of sweet creamy butter – he preferred butter while Ianto liked the clotted crème – when he frowned. “Are you kidding? Three hundred years?”

“Since the day of our very first wedding ceremony, yes.” Ianto sat down with his own mug of coffee and claimed a scone for himself; he was much neater in applying his crème and jam.

“Huh…” Jack stuffed half a scone in his mouth, chewed for a few moments and then washed it all down with a large swig of coffee. “Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun!”

“It’s always fun with you around, Cariad.” Ianto reached out and used his thumb to wipe a blob of jam from Jack’s chin before licking the digit into his own mouth and licking it clean. 

Jack’s eyes widened as he watched his husband’s erotic gesture and he felt the front of his trousers tighten, leaving him to wonder if the ship’s aging water tank would be hot enough for another shower in about an hour or so. 

“Wanna come back to bed?” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “I think you’ll find your anniversary present there.”

Ianto raised his leg under the table and let his sock-clad toes caress Jack’s crotch. “Are you talking about this present?”

(*****)

Dressed in soft flowing tunics with matching trousers, Jack and Ianto paused in the doorway looking down the aisle towards the High Priestess who stood waiting for them. The altar stood under a huge stone archway, which framed a breath-taking view of a vast ocean. The ancient cathedral perched on an out-jutting clifftop, so high that the sound of the massive waves crashing on the rocks below was a mere whisper to those attending the ceremony.

Clasping Ianto’s hand in his, Jack smiled. “Ready to get married again?”

“Any time, Cariad,” Ianto smiled back, “anywhere.”

“This is what… our 4,998th wedding?” Jack guessed.

Ianto rolled his eyes. “Close. This makes it an even five thousand times that we have pledged our hearts and our lives to one another.”

“And to think we’ve never been married in the same place twice. You have to admit that’s pretty cool.” As the music began to play, Jack leaned over and kissed his husband on the lips. “Here’s to our next five thousand, Yan.”

“And beyond, my beloved.” Ianto raised their clasped hands to his lips. “We have forever after all.”

“Forever,” Jack echoed as they stepped forward together. “And beyond.”

End

(*****)

Until It's Time for You to Go

Songwriters: Buffy Sainte Marie 

You're not a dream  
You're not an angel  
You're a woman.  
I'm not a king,  
I'm a man,  
Take my hand  
We'll make a space  
In the lives that we planned  
And here we'll stay  
Until it's time for you to go

Yes, we're different worlds apart  
We're not the same  
We laughed and played  
At the start like in a game.  
You could have stayed  
Outside my heart  
But in you came  
And here you'll stay  
Until it's time for you to go

Don't ask why,  
Don't ask how  
Don't ask forever,  
Love me now

This love of mine   
Had no beginning  
It has no end  
I was an oak,  
Now I'm a willow  
Now I can bend  
And tho' I'll never  
In my life see you again  
I still stay  
Until it's time for you to go


End file.
